We are excited to announce a new stock of locally grown carnivorous plants including beautiful, hard-to-find pitcher plants from a local grower! Plus we've heard from you and this spring we have grown a better selection of marginal aquatics than ever before! 

If you are new to water gardening, marginal aquatic plants thrive in shallow water near the edges of ponds and water gardens. Their roots grow under water but their foliage and flowers emerge above. They come in all shapes and sizes and perform several vital functions. They provide habitat for fish and wildlife, provide food for waterfowl, and they can help reduce shoreline erosion. Additionally, some of the marginals we have at Painters can spread out onto the water’s surface from the edge where they are rooted, providing some coverage for fish & creatures and helping to prevent algae development. Marginals are also perfect to soften the pond edges and blend the water garden into the landscape. Check out this list of plants growing at Painters this spring!

To continue to support the natural ecology here in WNC, Painters Greenhouse has revamped our aquatics program in other ways too*. While we no longer carry typical floating aquatics like water hyacinth or parrot's feather, we have native fairy moss (floater/surface cover) and frogbit (floater/surface cover and very similar to tiny water lilies) arriving within the week!

*A lot of the aquatics that are typically sold for water gardening have become invasive in our area with very serious consequences. These non-native aquatics are not just outcompeting other native plants (which is problem enough), but when they grow quickly and form dense mats, they block sunlight and reduce oxygen which harms fish and other native aquatic life. These masses of invasives can also interfere with recreation, and most critically, add to flood risk and clog water supply systems. We certainly don't need to increase our likelihood of flooding or decrease access to clean, plentiful water!

Even if you are the most diligent and responsible pond keeper, anything out-of-doors is too often outside of our control. For example, raccoons and bears love to snack on water hyacinth. The seeds pass through their digestive system and are then deposited in their scat (poop). This scat, with its viable seeds, can then be dispersed to new locations spreading water hyacinth in unintended waterways. Additionally, flooding is a significant contributor to the spread of invasive species - if you had invasive aquatics or terrestrial plants that got washed away in Helene, it's very likely that some of them survived.