While garden plants need to be fertilized from time to time, aquatic plants generally don't need to. The garden pond contains natural fertilizer. With some pond plants, however, a little tutoring may be necessary. Learn when and how to fertilize your aquatic plants!

Aquatic plants sometimes also need additional nutrients

Fertilize aquatic plants regularly - yes or no?

Practice shows that aquatic plants do not have to be fertilized regularly. Only a few pond owners and hobby gardeners swear by continuously supplying their pond beauties with fertilizer like all other plants in the garden.

Caution: Regular fertilization quickly leads to over-fertilization of aquatic plants, which in turn leads to rot and burning. In addition, too many nutrients remain in the pond water due to the constant administration. The unfortunate consequence: algae formation.

Fertilize aquatic plants only when necessary

When it comes to fertilizing aquatic plants, it's better to react than act. This means: only add fertilizer to the natural cycle of the pond water when the plants indicate that they need it. But even then, the following always applies: less is more. So use fertilizer sparingly.

How do you recognize the need?

  • First of all, if you put aquatic plants in your pond, you do NOT have to fertilize them.
  • If the plants show signs of deficiency, you can add some fertilizer. Potential deficiency symptoms include yellowing and relatively poor flowering. But even if such "symptoms" occur, you should check before fertilizing whether too dense a plant population in the pond is the cause of the problem.

Attention: aquatic plants that change color are not necessarily diseased. In the autumn season in particular, pond plants often take on a reddish-brown colour.

If you are unsure whether there is a nutrient deficiency in the water, you should measure the iron content before taking any specific action. Appropriate tests are available to you inexpensively in hardware stores and garden centers.

Fertilize aquatic plants properly - this is how it works

Fertilization is done with a fertilizer cone or a fertilizer tablet. Press the respective agent directly into the soil.

Important: This variant of fertilizing is much gentler than fertilizing directly over the water. Its effectiveness is not as intense, which is an advantage in terms of algae growth.

Only use fertilizers that are low in phosphate or free of phosphate!

tips

You can also make fertilizer for your aquatic plants yourself.

Category:

Vegetable garden