Pond Guild

A guild for a temperate pond and its margin, USDA zones 5 to 7, where the water does the fertilising and the plants do the cleaning. Bald cypress is the centrepiece on the bank, feet in the water, shading the shallows and dropping needles as mulch. Elderberry takes the wet edge. In the water, American lotus gives edible roots and seeds, wild rice seeds the open shallows, and cattail and softstem bulrush filter runoff and build the bank. Watercress lives at the inflow, skirret in the wet margin. Marshmallow, meadowsweet, water mint and Joe Pye weed hold the bank, feed insects and stock the medicine chest, and alsike clover fixes nitrogen on the damp ground above them. Keep a stretch of open water for the ducks, and keep the bulrush from closing it.