Oxygenating Pond Plants

Oxygenating plants are essential for your pond's ecosystem. Not only will they help keep the water healthy, but they also provide shelter, shade and cover for all sorts of wildlife, including amphibians and invertebrates.

Oxygenators are notoriously difficult to grow and transport, for which reason we only ship them from spring to October. We typically send them out once a week, and use Royal Mail First class. We sell oxygenators in 5 bunches of 5 strands, clipped together with a metal clip so that you can just chuck them into the water. Please do the chucking as soon as you can after they arrive! Hornwort (see below) is naturally a floater, so you can take its clips off if you like.

Very roughly, we recommend two bunches per square metre of pond.

We offer two species - Hornwort and Water crowfoot - both native and with a naturally widespread distribution across the UK. If you don't end up buying through us, all we'd ask is that you don't buy non-native plants for your pond. They might take over but, more importantly, you can't make a failsafe biological exclusion zone to stop them getting out into the wider environment. Chances are they'll be less helpful to the wildlife too.

Hornwort (Ceratophyllum demersum): Hornwort is one of those plants which seems to be almost universal - it grows everywhere. Wikipedia says it's native to all continents except Antarctica; in the U.S. Hornwort is known as coontail - the sort of thing you'd expect to see Davy Crockett wearing. It grows in shade or full sun, in still or gently running water. It's completely submerged and likes depths over 30cm. At the start of the season, or harvested from deeper water, it will appear brittle and black. Don't worry! It will come into growth soon enough. 

Water crowfoot (Ranunculus aquatilis): Water crowfoot is a different cup of tea. From its flowers you can tell it's related to buttercups, and it sends them up above the water, where they attract various pollinators. It will grow in relatively fast flowing as well as still water,with a planting depth between 15-60cm.

Supplier : Southwest Aquatics