Pond plants provide oxygen ... aquatic oxygenators
PLANTING OXYGENATORS ... Why plant them? Why not just throw them in and let them sort themselves out? If they do grow well because conditions are right for them, then you will want to cut them back regularly. This is much easier to do if the plant is growing from one or two specific places.
REASONS FOR REPLANTING OXYGENATORS ... If the pool has a heavy infestation of snails and they have stripped the stems. If the pool has been really choked with weed for a long time. Or the water has been very green or strangulated with blanket weed for a long time you might find that all the live growth is at the tips, quite some distance away from the place that it started.
You may find it necessary for a complete cleanout because of weed or silt problems.
This may particularly be the case if you are using the weed in conjunction with a filter system. At over 50p a bunch replenishing oxygenators can be expensive business.
METHOD ...
1. Any casual cleanout of debris or leaves from the pool often brings with a tangle of oxygenating weed. This is your raw material - don't hang about with it since the whole plant is a living thing and needs to constantly moist. Keep it in a sealed plastic bag in a refrigerator if you want to "buy some time".
2. Break off tips (or stem lengths if tips are in short supply) between 4 and 8 inches (10-20cm) long.
3.Collect the lengths (cuttings) into bunches of between 4 to 8. Grip them firmly at the lower ends.
4. Professionals wrap the bunches together with lead wire. Here we are using little snippets of lead roof flashing.
5. Push the tied bunches deep into a basket filled with an inert gravel or grit.
6. No need for soil as the plant will take its nutrition directly from the water.
7. Fill the basket up with as many bunches as you can fit in. 12 for a small basket.
8. Get the basket and its contents under water as soon as possible. Until the cuttings show some growth, leave it undisturbed at about 9ins to one foot (20 - 30cms) below the surface.
If the cuttings seem to get covered with a dirty, stony sediment, gently brush it off with your fingers. This is just lime from the water being precipitated on the leaves.