Planting Around a Water Garden Pool

We want a small pool for a few fish and water plants but I don't want to go to all the trouble of building one out of concrete. Can't I buy one? Yes. Various types of small pools are now available made out of Fiberglas and plastics that are extremely durable and long-lasting. Heavy-duty polyethylene film can also be easily used. Even the smallest garden can feature an aquatic display.

What background materials should I use for my small informal pool? Small evergreens, yew, arborvitae, cedar, hemlock, azalea, mountain-laurel, rhododendron, leucothoe, euonymus, cotoneaster, daphne.

Can you tell me some flowering shrubs I can put around my pool? Viburnum, abelia, mock-orange, lilac, deutzia, spirea, azalea, rhododendron, mountain-laurel.

I want a formal-looking clipped hedge around the sides of my formal pool, which is at the rear of my garden. What would you suggest? Yew, hemlock, barberry, box (for sheltered positions), privet.

Can I have a successful fish pond in a plot about 9 x 15 ft.? How could anything so small be landscaped? Why not pave the area with flagstones, leaving wide cracks between stones? These could be planted with rock plants. The pool would be the central feature.

Have you any planting suggestions for rim of a pool? Astilbe cardinal-flower, Japanese iris, loosestrife, marsh-marigold, rose mallow, Siberian iris and Primula japonica.

I have a rocky ledge by my pool. What evergreen might be grown over it? Depending on size of ledge and pool, low growing bear berry (arctostaphylos), or one of the creeping junipers might be used. For larger pools, there is nothing quite as graceful as a dwarf weeping Canada hemlock planted with its branches hanging down over the rocks.

Which flowering plants can be grown in a pool other than water lilies? Floating-heart (Nymphoides peltatum); true forget-me-not; water-hyacinth (Eichornia); water-poppy (Hydrocleis); water-snowflake (Nymphoides indicum). The last three are not winter hardy.

What can be used to break the monotonous flatness of a lily pool? Tall-growing water plants, such as American and Hindu lotus; calla; cattails (if pool is large); flowering rush; yellow and blug flags; taro; water-plantain.

With what flowers shall I border informal pool 6 x 10 ft.? Filipendula vulgaris 'Flore-pleno', Iris ochroleuca, Trallius ledebauri, Lythrum salicaria, hemerocallis, Liatris pycnostachya, Myosatis scorpioides semperflorens.

I have a hillside rock garden with an uneven 6-ft.-diameter pool. Will you give me advice as to plants for inside the pool and for outside to hold up the dirt which seems to wash away with each rain? Plant Nymphoides peltatum inside the pool. Caltha palustris (marsh-marigold) along the edge, also Primula rosea, Trallius europaeus, and 2 or 3 Lobelia cardinalis (cardinal-flower). In between plant solid with Myosotis scorpioides, which will hold the soil.

Which is the best way to keep sacred lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) through winter? If growing in a pond that is drained during the winter, cover the roots with a sufficient depth of leaves to prevent the frost penetrating to the tubers. When this plant is grown in water 2 or 3 ft. deep, usually no winter protection is necessary.

How can I grow water-hyacinth? Float in 6 ins. water above a box or tub containing 6 ins. or more of soil. Keep from drifting by confining within an anchored wooden hoop. Bring plants indoors before frost.

How do you winter water-hyacinths that have been in an outside pool? Bring them indoors before the leaves are injured by cold. Float them in a container of water which has 3 or 4 ins. of soil in the bottom. Keep in a sunny window in a temperature of 55 degrees to 60 degrees F.

Also see Growing water lilies.