The American Boy's Handy Book/Chapter 6

In gathering plants for your aquarium you will undoubtedly see many much too large for your purpose, and yet so beautiful that you naturally desire to keep them. Some water plants are extremely lovely and all of them odd when seen growing anywhere but in their accustomed places. Water-lilies growing in the midst of a lawn will be sure to excite surprise, and cat-tails flourishing in a conservatory will be a novelty. Yet it is a comparatively simple matter to rear these and other aquatic plants in your house and garden.

Select a spot in your flower-bed and make an excavation of sufficient depth to set a water-tight barrel in, so that the top of the barrel will be even with the surface of the ground. Set the barrel in and fill the earth around. In the bottom of the barrel put about eight or ten inches of black pond-mud; plant the water-lily roots firmly in centre of mud. Fill the barrel with water, being careful to pour it in gradually, so as not to disturb or displace the mud. Figure 54 shows a cross-section of ground and barrel. Everything being then as it is in the natural or wild state, the lily will flourish and bloom, adding a beautiful and curious feature to your plat. Supply fresh water only as the water in the barrel evaporates.

Cat-tails are of graceful form and make a pretty background. At the nearest marsh dig up a bunch of good healthy ones and plant them in some of their native mud in a watertight box or pail. Set the box or pail in the earth. A cover of plank, with a round hole in the centre for the cat-tails to come through, should be put over the top and covered with the sod. Half an inch of water over the surface of the mud in box or pail is all that is necessary. (See illustration, Fig. 55.) Figure 56 shows how cat-tails may be disposed of in-doors, or where it is inconvenient to make room for them in the soil. A very unique and effective floral arrangement may be made by grouping pot-plants around them.