Water Gardening: Water garden containers?, 1 by henryr10

henryr10 wrote:
I haven't counted recently but we have probably 5 dozen WC Gardens.

It's probably the easiest and , to me anyway, most rewarding type of container gardening we do.

VERY little set-up, cost, maintenance w/ a quick reward.

I use anything that will hold water for the vessel.

We have a half dozen 5 gallon S/S Iced Tea dispensers w/ various Aroids and WP's in them.
Giant mixing bowls, canning pots, tea pots, stock pots, full barrels, 1/2 barrels, etc., even my Grandmothers old pressure cooker are all pulled into the mix.

A good place to find used vessels is a Thrift Store..... Goodwill, Salvation Army, etc.
They go very cheaply and there's usually a goodly amount to choose from.
Also Farm Stores for VERY sturdy buckets, troughs and such.
We use Horse Feed Buckets in our full barrels (put a cinder block on end in the bottom and set the Bucket on top) and bought a damaged 200 gallon Rubbermaid watering trough for 50 bucks.

For mosquito control we use feeder goldfish (buck a dozen), mosquito-fish and dunks.
The Gam's will only get about 1" long tops,
think Guppies w/o the fancy tail and paint job.

If you have access to electric and can afford them definitely look into small pumps. The little ones are just fine for WGC's and should be coming on Fall close-out sale pretty soon.
They're not required but that running water sound........

Here's a shot from Spring of one of our 1/2 barrels.
The water is pouring from a S/S vase we picked up for 25 cents at a garage sale. The pump 5 bucks at a close-out at HD.

The small containers (and not so small) can be brought easily into the home, come Winter, for year round enjoyment.
We keep full sized 7' papyrus in buckets under lights in the living room!

Ric