Just as with regular planted gardens, without proper care and attention pond flora can become overgrown and begin to look untidy. And as with gardening, if the pond plants receive a little bit of attention regularly, the job will be much more effortless and enjoyable.

Plants should ideally be introduced into the pond, and current plants propagated, around late spring and early summer. This is late enough so that the danger of frosts have passed but not too late into the season so that the plants have enough time to establish themselves before the onset of winter.New plants should be checked for unwanted weeds and duckweed. They can then be added into the pond at the position and depth specified for the particular species. These plants should rarely need any attention in the first season in the pond and can be allowed to grow and flourish.Most established pond plants have a spell of vigorous seasonal growth around late spring and into late summer. Propagating these plants helps to control their spread and promotes the growth of young healthy shoots. It can also be a very cost effective way of increasing stock. Removing dead flowers from blooming plants usually promotes a fuller bloom the following year.Each species of plant will have its own method for dividing. Most floating plants naturally produce runners or plantlets which can simply detach from the main plant to float on the pond surface.

Lilies and Irises grow from a fleshy tuber called a rhizome. Using a sharp clean knife an uprooted and cleaned rhizome can be cut into sections containing two or three buds and some young roots. The cut sections can be individually re-potted and can each grow into a new plant.

Many oxygenators can simply be grown from cuttings by taking healthy, young shoots from a parent plant and burying 10mm - 20mm of the cut end into a submerged pot of pond compost. In good conditions cuttings can establish quickly and be potted on after a few weeks.

Most marginal plants grow from clustered bulbs or fibrous roots which can be divided and re-potted, much in the same way as many regular garden plants.

Some plants produce seeds which can be gathered in late summer to early autumn. The collected seeds should be sown as soon as they are ripe into pots of very moist pond compost. The seeds will need to be left indoors or in a greenhouse over winter and should begin to germinate early the following spring. Plants grown from seed usually take a few years to mature and flower.