MINIATURE AQUATIC AND POOLSIDE PLANTS
Obviously, the location of a pool (in sun or shade, warm climate or cool), its size (some plants would smother a miniature pool in a few weeks), and its design should be considered in selecting plants to grow in or with it. In fact, very tiny pools carefully placed to catch an artistic reflection may be better without any plant embellishment.
A frequent error is overplanting, with the water surface covered by a confusion of foliage and flowers, the perimeter a jungle. In small pools one pygmy lily is plenty; it needs clear, open water to set it off.
For pools of all designs—formal, contemporary, informal—plants are seldom arranged in neat rows, groups that repeat themselves regularly, or matching masses in perfect symmetry. The closest to formal balance might be adding accent and height by placing the tallest plant in the center of a formal pool. More often, it’s effective in one corner or at one side.
Few plants offer such striking variation in the forms available to create interesting patterns and dramatic contrast. There are flat, leathery leaf pads and slim, spiky swords; glorious china-like cup flowers and fluffy plumes; modest creepers and bold elephant leaves. Seldom does a flower-arrangement artist have such a wealth of exciting material with which to make her prize-winning compositions.
Miniature Water Lilies
Of the two general types of water lilies—tropical and hardy—the tropicals are least likely to be in scale with miniature pools. The leaves and flowers are larger, the leaves spreading out wider and the flowers standing out higher. The tropicals need lots of sun and warmth, can be shocked into dormancy if the water chills, and are usually treated like annuals and planted fresh, each summer. Some can be propagated from viviparous plantlets that grow on the leaves.
Among hardy water lilies there is a selection of pygmies with four-inch leaves and two-inch flowers in many colors—white, yellow, pink, red, and bicolors, some with attractively marbled foliage. Given generous sunshine, warm quiet water, and good nourishment, they will flower from July to frost, and can be held over the winter either outdoors or in.
In our area we set out hardy water lilies in late April or early May. If a late cold snap occurs when the plants arrive by mail, we keep them moist until it’s over. Since the roots are hardy only if they do not freeze, and since it’s difficult to keep small pools from freezing, each lily is planted in its own box, which is set on small stones or blocks so it is raised off the floor of the pool. Or plant in soil at the bottom of a tub-pool that will be taken up in fall. Lay the rhizome horizontal, with its growing tip out of the soil. Cover the surface with a web of clean sand, to keep the soil from muddying the water. If the plant is leafed out and the leaves don’t reach the surface of the pool, they’ll lengthen their stems in a few days.
For best growth and flowering, a pygmy lily needs at least a third of a bushel of soil and about eight inches of water over its crown. Soil can be heavy and clay-like, or average garden loam. If possible, add one-fourth the quantity of well-rotted cow manure—no other kind. Experts recommend strongly against the use of other-than-cow manures, swamp muck, leaf mold, peat moss, sand, or lime.
Lacking cow manure, you can get fertilizers prepared specially for water lilies, or you can use commercial garden fertilizers like those with 5-10-5 analysis. Supply nourishment at planting time, and once again a month or so later. Wrap balls of rotted cow manure, or handfuls of commercial fertilizer, in thin paper (a paper napkin will do) and thrust them down into the soil around the roots. Water lilies have voracious appetites, and even the pygmies eat heartily. On a starvation diet, they’ll stop growing and flowering.
In winter, store the rhizomes in an unheated cellar or garage where they will keep cool but not freeze. Don’t let them dry out completely. Keep the soil in the container barely moist; or if the rhizome is not in soil, wrap it in burlap that can be kept moist.
Hardy water lilies are propagated by planting divisions of the roots, with each section having at least one growing point.
In the wide selection of available varieties, the following pygmies are suitable for most miniature pools.
Nymphaea Nymphaeaceae Pygmy Water Lily
adorata minor—Pint-sized variety of the native pond lily with fragrant, dainty, white three-inch flowers in generous profusion; leaves lined with red beneath. ‘Helen Fowler’ is a fragrant pink-flowered variety.
aurora—An old hybrid, more dwarf than miniature, but suitable for small pools. Changeable flowers open soft yellow, darken to rusty orange in the second stage, then to deep red in the third stage. The small leaves are mottled with wine-red lines.
‘Jo Ann Pring’—True pygmy with three-inch leaves, dusty-pink flowers lighter in the center.
‘Patricia’—One of the few small tropicals with crimson flowers, brown-metal buds. Young plants are borne on the leaves.
tetragona (pygmaea)—Smallest of all, with long-lasting two-inch white flowers with a fragrance like China tea, four-inch soft green leaves. Easy to grow, even in shallow water. The variety alba, or white pygmy, seems the same to me as the variety helvola, an old hybrid usually listed as yellow pygmy, and is even smaller than the species, with brown-blotched leaves and glowing yellow, star-shaped flowers.
‘Royal Purple’—A new red-purple, tropical lily.
Floating Plants
Another advantage of miniature pools is that any of the attractive surface plants that multiply too fast can be easily scooped out as often as you wish. And they are unusually attractive in forms, colors, and textures. Feeding from nutrients in solution in the water, they make shade for fish, and their dangling roots provide a safe place for fish to spawn. Simply drop the plants in the water and let them grow. Or, if you want them to raise a family, put some soil in a shallow spot where the roots can anchor. Most are annuals, to be bought each year.
Oxygenating Plants
These are aquatics that grow down in the water and help keep it sweet and clean. Bunches of some can be simply dropped in the pool. But all will grow better and save you the trouble of replacing them if their roots are in soil, in pots set on the pool floor. Although they’re mostly perennials, we prefer to start each season with a fresh supply. They’re available in variety at pet stores or by mail from lily specialists. Since they’re neither true miniature plants nor as decorative as they are functional, separate descriptions are not included here.
Other Aquatic Plants
With the water lilies and other aquatics, these are the only plants that can grow with their roots standing in water—some in deeper water than others. With few exceptions, this does not mean sour, stagnant water. Even in bogs there is some circulation. Adding chunks of charcoal that absorbs impurities will often help keep the water fresh and healthful.
Some of these plants are hardy, some are not; some need their roots in soil; some can do without it; some are better growing in the water of the pool; some in the boggy soil beside it.
Earlier in this chapter I said I had never built a pool. I meant that I had never done it personally and worried about water levels and the general engineering. But we have had several pools, little more than puddles, which my husband constructed. Small though they were, they gave us the chance to enjoy water lilies and bog plants. It was then that I began to realize the delights and magnitude of this sort of gardening. Someday I hope to have a pond of some size—a spot for lilies, frogs, and goldfish and all of those things G. L. Thomas, Jr., writes about so charmingly in his book, Garden Pools, Water-Lilies and Goldfish. I also get great pleasure out of the catalogues several suppliers send out. They are most delightful reading. Read that book, and the catalogues, and I know you will be converted to water-gardening.
CHAPTER 13
MINIATURE WOODLAND GARDENS AND PLANTS
For ten years we lived within the boundaries of New York City in a big, old house that occupied more than a third of the squared, bare eighty-by-hundred-foot lot. Now we have a smaller house, and the gardenable land is completely surrounded by woodlands where native plants grow as they please. In both places we’ve had small woodland gardens; and no matter how pleasurable our other plantings, we’ve loved these best.
If your idea of a pretty garden centers around statuesque delphiniums, precise rows of roses, bold splashes of boisterous color, you may call insipid what we find enchanting. But if your senses respond to the fresh, sharp aroma of moist woods soil, the whispering of trees, the patterns of cool shadows, the shy delicacy of the spring beauty, or the gnome-like pomposity of a Jack-in-the-pulpit, be sure to have at least a tiny woodland garden, whether you have to create a spot for it or have it naturally. Once established, it gives more refreshment for less care than any other garden I know.