Say! You would like to grow watercress, eh?! The fastest growing land green in the world, eh?!
Say! You don’t have a pond! What to do now…
Purpose
The goal for these plants is to create an environment as if they were at the edge of a stream or pond. The plants that thrive here will be tolerant of root rot, yet not floating (so that would encompass “Shoreland” and “Emergent” Plants in the illustration above).
Building Semi-Aquatic Garden Beds
May sound complex, but think again. Just throw a bit of soil into a sealed container (e.g. a bucket, glazed pot, bathtub, etc.) or dig a hole lined with a pond liner or plastic sheet. Then fill with water to the level your plants would likely experience in nature. Watercress and Kangkong, for example, need to be wet but not submerged, while taro, lotus and cattail like to be submerged at least a bit. Et voila! That’s it people. You have faster-growing plants to munch on, plus you have increased the biodiversity of your yard!
Plants that Grow in Semi-Flooded Soil
- Watercress
- Lebanese Cress
- Water Spinach (Kangkong)
- Water Chestnut
- Taro
- Sweet Potato (edible leaves too!)
- Wild Rice
- Wassabi
- Wintergreen
- Lotus
- Cattail (entire plant is edible)
- Reed grass (edible roots, shoots, and seeds)
- Arrowhead or Wapato (“Indian potato,” edible tubers)
- Pickerel weed (edible leaves, flowers, and seeds)
- *Elderberry – between shoreland and upland plant
The Ecologist Cowboy 