Our Horticultural team has been busy these past few months making our Park’s gardens beautiful with thousands of plants on display. Recently though, our team put on their wading pants and hopped into the pond at the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden to plant aquatic plants into the water!

One of the main plants you’ll find in the pond is Thalia dealbata, or hardy water canna. They’re an aquatic perennial that features long-stalked canna and can have violet blue flowers on it. They can grow as tall as over six feet and are native to swamps and ponds in the southern United States.

What’s special about our hardy water cannas is all of them originated from a single specimen we acquired 12 years ago. We’ve divided and propagated this plant over the years and through the winters in our support greenhouse.

The other primary aquatic plant you’ll find is Nymphaea spp., or tropical water lilies. They are great resting spots for frogs and other insects who find themselves in the pond. These plants also provide many benefits to their ecosystem, including providing shade to the pond, eliminating light needed to grow algae, and giving water creatures a cold hiding spot underneath it. Nymphaea spp. grow best in quiet water, so our pond is a perfect place for them. These plants love the sun and can bloom all summer and into fall.

Unlike our hardy water canna, our tropical water lilies arrive every spring from a specialty water garden nursery in Ontario.

Now that their plant installation is complete, we wait for nature and visitors to come and enjoy! Stop by the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden on your next walk through the Park to see our team’s incredible efforts (and hopefully some beautiful blooms and frogs later this summer!)