Submerged Plants at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

THERE ARE various types of water plant: water lilies, deep-water aquatics, floating aquatics, submerged plants, marginal plants and bog plants. Water lilies, deep-water aquatics and, to a lesser extent, floating aquatics all provide cover for fish and insects, and also shield the water from sunlight, so helping to keep algae under control. Submerged plants and floating aquatics also play an important role because they feed off the nutrients in the water that algae need in order to live, and in this way they help to reduce their proliferation. Once you have your quota of functional plants, use marginal and bog plants as decoration. Choose those that suit the design of your pool. An informal pool should include a variety of plants that have been positioned at random. They should complement the surrounding area to make the feature look as natural as possible. Since the bog area helps merge the pool into the landscape, the bog plants should match groups of nearby plants. For formal pools it is best to select three or five specimen plants and place them in some kind of definite pattern.

Water can be used in many ways in a garden. It provides a medium in which plants of a special kind—the aquatics—can be grown. It can also be stocked with fish which bring life and movement to the garden. Plants and fish combine well, as the latter benefit from the protection that floating and submerged leaves provide. But if the fish are to be enjoyed to the full, planting must not be too dense or they will be screened almost completely from view. One advantage of having both fish and plants in a pool is that the plants will help keep the water fresh.

WATER STARWORT. The water starworts are soft, slender plants of the genus Callitriche, usually growing in crowded patches, either on moist ground, or in shallow water and with floating leaves, or wholly submerged. Leaves, are opposite, narrow in submerged parts, nearly round when floating, and then 3 to 5 millimeters in diameter and practically sessile, forming rosettes, in patches 2 to 10 decimeters across. Flowers are axillary, sessile, with 2 tiny bractlets. The stami-nate flower consists of 1 stamen only, which bears its yellow anther 1 or 2 millimeters above the rosette of leaves.