Floating Water Plants

Floating water plants sit right on the surface of your pond with their roots trailing loose in the water below, no pots or planting shelves required. Our floating water plants collection covers the varieties that do this job well in Pacific Northwest ponds and water gardens: water hyacinth, four types of water lettuce, hornwort, American frogbit, and floating fern.

Each one earns its spot for a different reason. Water hyacinth throws up a lavender bloom and grows fast enough to shade a sunny pond within weeks. Water lettuce forms tight rosettes that fish like to hide under, and we carry the standard green Rosette along with Blue Cloud, Jurassic, and Ruffled for buyers who want some variety in leaf shape and color. Hornwort works underwater more than on top, hanging just below the surface as a fine-textured oxygenator. Frogbit and floating fern fill in the smaller gaps with delicate foliage that softens the edges of hyacinth and lettuce.

Most of these ship as live plants in minimum quantities of six, since that's how they're grown and packed for shipping. Scroll down for details on choosing between them, stocking rates, and what to expect once cold weather hits.

What Belongs in This Category

Floating water plants are the ones that never touch the bottom. They drift on the surface with their leaves catching sun and their roots hanging free in the water column, pulling in nutrients as they go. That's different from a shallow water or marginal plant, which sits in a pot on a shelf, and different from a hardy or tropical lily, which is rooted in soil at the bottom of the pond. If a plant on our site needs a planting basket or soil, it's not in this category.

Right now this collection carries eight items across five real plant types: water hyacinth, water lettuce (in four cultivars: Rosette, Blue Cloud, Jurassic, and Ruffled), hornwort/coontail, American frogbit, and floating fern. All are sold as live plants, and all but the Jurassic water lettuce ship in a minimum order quantity of six per variety, which matters for anyone planning a small tub or barrel pond.

Choosing Between the Types We Carry

Water Hyacinth (Eichhornia Crassipes)

This is the plant most people picture when they hear "floating pond plant." It has thick, glossy leaves on inflated stems that keep it buoyant, a hanging curtain of dark roots, and a light purple flower spike when conditions are good. It's also the fastest grower in this collection, which is exactly why it's useful in a pond that's fighting algae. It pulls nutrients out of the water quickly and shades a large amount of surface area per plant.

Water Lettuce (Pistia Stratiotes)

We stock four water lettuce varieties. Rosette is the classic pale green, ruffled-leaf form. Blue Cloud has a bluish-gray cast to the foliage. Jurassic runs larger and coarser-leaved than the others. Ruffled has more pronounced crimping along the leaf edge. Functionally they behave the same way in the pond; the differences are mostly color and leaf texture, so this is where personal preference matters more than performance.

Hornwort / Coontail (Ceratophyllum Demersum)

Hornwort is the odd one out in this category because it's usually thought of as a submerged oxygenator rather than a surface floater. We carry it unbanded and free-floating rather than potted, so it drifts just under the surface instead of sitting on top of it. It's a fine, needle-leafed plant that fish like to spawn in and graze around, and it doesn't compete for the same visual real estate as hyacinth or lettuce.

American Frogbit (Limnobium Spongia)

Small, round, lily-pad-shaped leaves and a much lower profile than water hyacinth. Frogbit spreads by runners and fills gaps between larger floaters instead of dominating a pond on its own. It's a good pick if you already have hyacinth or lettuce and want to add coverage without adding another large-leafed plant competing for the same space.

Floating Fern (Ceratopteris Thalicroides, form Cornuta)

A true fern that floats rather than roots, with finely divided, feathery fronds. It reads differently than the broad-leafed floaters and works well for buyers who want texture contrast on the surface rather than more solid coverage.

Factors to Weigh Before You Order

Minimum Order Quantities

Most of what's in this collection ships in a minimum of six plants per variety. That's not a markup tactic, it's how these plants are grown and shipped as live stock. If you're stocking a small container water garden, six water hyacinth is probably more coverage than you need right away; if you're working with a full-size backyard pond, six is usually a starting point, not the finish line.

Pond Size and Coverage

Floating plants multiply on their own once they're established, sometimes fast. Buy for where your pond will be in a month, not just where it is on delivery day. A pond that's mostly bare on planting day can be half-covered within a few weeks in warm weather, especially with water hyacinth.

Climate and Overwintering

Water hyacinth, water lettuce, and floating fern are tropical. In the Pacific Northwest they won't survive an outdoor winter and are typically grown as seasonal plants, pulled or composted before the first hard frost, or overwintered indoors in a heated tank or greenhouse if you want to keep the same plants going into next year. Hornwort and frogbit can sometimes persist longer into cooler weather than the true tropicals, but none of these are cold-hardy plants for a Puget Sound pond left outside through winter.

Fish Compatibility

Koi and larger goldfish will pick at the roots of floating plants, particularly water lettuce and hyacinth. That's normal and rarely kills an established plant, but it does mean a pond with a heavy fish load may need more plants replaced or restocked over a season than a pond with light or no fish.

Seasonal Guidance

Spring is the best time to add floating plants once water temperatures climb into the 60s, giving them a full growing season to establish and spread. Through summer, keep an eye on coverage: unchecked floating plants can blanket an entire pond surface, which cuts off gas exchange and can stress fish, so thin them back if they start covering more than half the water. In fall, plan to remove tropical floaters like hyacinth, lettuce, and floating fern before the first frost rather than letting them die back in the pond.

One more thing worth knowing: water hyacinth and some water lettuce varieties are regulated or restricted as invasive species in a number of states. They're legal to buy and grow in a contained backyard pond in most places, but they should never be released or dumped into a lake, stream, or other natural waterway. If you're unsure about your state's rules, check with your local extension office before ordering.