Marginal plants are perhaps the most versatile plant group in the water garden. They add beauty, color, texture, and valuable filtration, and are called marginals because they’re typically planted around the edges, or “margins,” of the pond.
Marginal plants typically thrive in wet soil or standing water that covers the crown of the plant anywhere from two to six inches. Some species even thrive in water more than two feet deep. Marginal plants come in an overwhelming assortment of genera, providing you with many shapes, textures, colors, and sizes. Choose a miniature sweet flag that’s only a few inches tall, or a tropical thalia whose flowers are borne 10 feet above the surface of the water. The most common and readily available varieties of marginal plants include iris, sweet flag, pickerel plant, canna, thalia, bulrush, and cattail, to name just a few.
