Hybrid hardy waterlilies are just about the only game in town for a pond like that, they will cope well with the 4'-6' deep area. There are different growing habits among the hardies, odorata hybrids are often dumped free or cheap by contractors looking to stick you with a hefty pond clearance bill down the road, those are pondbusters Any waterlily source worth their salt will have a selection of medium to large Marliac hybrids which are well suited to the task, modest spreading rates, very pleasant bloom to pad ratios Water hyacinth might work well, if there is a suitable sheltered bay that warms some, those would need to be raked and thinned out when the first frosts scorch them Those make good winter fodder when left to dry out, if you have grazing critters about

Update: they all have died. I think it was damp off. They would be ok then the stems would be weak and they would keel over. I carefully removed them from the peat pellets the 2nd batch was in and replanted them in seed starting mix .. maybe I will have better luck this way. I was probably keeping things too wet. Just frustrating. At this point I think I will never see any bloom. I am tempted to keep them outdoors also Michele. I did better with my cuttings in the spring putting them outside. I noticed in the spring overwintered cuttings would die of rot about now. Probably too humid/wet conditions for some. I may invest in some captan also. I will have to see how much it is :) Marleah

Oops, actually that was the wrong pic. That's a close up of the filter and waterfall return. The filter is at the back, it's a 260 liter reservoir sitting in a lined "pit" with raised sides. The reservoir is partially sunk into the ground so I didn't need to make the sides of the pit too high, or use too much rockery to hide it. I wouldn't really call it a top pond, it's not that big... The "bridge" is just a home-made bench because there is no other way to access the filter and stuff without falling in - it goes right up to the hedge. The white thing in the middle of the filter reservoir is a right-angle pipe joint where the water from th epump is directed to the bottom of the filter - where it then upflows through all the pan scrubbers and fake alphagrog layers. A black right angle joint would have been better, but I couldn't find one. Never mind - in the top of the reservoir watercress is growing nicely (to eat nutrients before they can feed algae in the pond) and should hide the joint it eventually. You can see an aluminium tube sticking out of the joint, which is my home made venturi to make sure the filter bacteria get plenty of oxygen. The filtered water overflows the reservoir into the lined pit (which also has some barley straw decomposing nicely in it), then it flows into another reservoir with pickeral weed, golden sedge, marsh marigold and water forget-me-not growing in it... then it flows back into the pond via the shallow waterfall. Lots of "dwell time" in each reservoir section, and the water doesn't flow that fast, so suspended material settles out quite nicely. I couldn't use a fast flowing or high waterfall, because the noise of it at night in Summer would be enough to annoy the neighbours trying to sleep with their windows open. So far the filter has been working really well, the water is crystal clear, but the real test will be next Spring/Summer when the weather gets warm again and I'll see how well it controls algae blooms...

Thanks for the compliment ellekaye. It's still looking a bit thrown together - I expect I'll re-arrange the plants next year, and I'm hoping the more garish-coloured rocks will "weather" a bit or get a bit of coverage from the alpines. But overall I am pleased with it :-) Err... no, I don't think you know me, I only post here in the UK ponds forum... nowhere else (well, nowhere that's pond/garden-related at least). If you DO know me, then I'm afraid you have the better of me!