Top Picks for Water-Loving Vegetation in Wet Surroundings

In the quest for a beautiful and thriving garden, even those with wet soil need not despair. Many ornamental plants and shrubs can not only survive but thrive in moist and soggy conditions. Here's a selection of water-tolerant plants that can bring life and colour to your wet garden.

Swamp dogwood (Cornus amomum), a shrub that prefers wet soils, boasts late spring blossoms and late summer berries, making it an attractive addition to any wet landscape.

Trees that can grow in wet areas include box elder, red maple, silver maple, common alder, river birch, American hornbeam, fringetree, persimmon, deciduous hollies, dawn redwood, London planetree, cherrybark oak, weeping willow, and bald cypress.

For perennials and bulbs, hostas (Funkien), yellow flag iris (Sumpfschwertlilie, Iris pseudacorus), daylilies (Hemerocallis), elderberry (Holunder, Sambucus nigra), and dogwood (Hartriegel, Cornus alba) are robust options for wet soils. Additionally, moisture-loving wetland plants like marsh forget-me-not (Sumpf-Vergissmeinnicht), cotton grass (Wollgras), arrow-leaf (Pfeilblatt), water fennel (Wasser-Fenchel), and watercress (Brunnenkresse) thrive in soggy or aquatic settings.

Panicum Heavy Metal, a native ornamental grass with metallic blue leaves, grows upright and turns yellow in the fall, thriving in the wild beside bodies of water and generally loving moist conditions. Sorghastrum Indian steel, or blue prairie grass, is another native grass that grows near water in natural conditions and is happy in wet soil, offering dense foliage and summer flowers.

Lily of the valley, bugbane, crinum, sweet woodruff, daylily, rose mallow, blue vervain, monkey flower, and iris are other water-tolerant perennials and bulbs.

Perennial plants that can tolerate standing water and flooded areas include pickerelweed, cattail, iris, canna, elephant's ear, swamp sunflower, and scarlet swamp hibiscus.

It's essential to remember that while many plants can tolerate wet soil, well-draining soil is important for most plants in the garden and landscape. Poorly drained soil can cause plant roots to rot. Most 'wet' sites in the home garden are only wet during particular periods or seasons rather than year-round.

Hardy hibiscus offers large, beautiful blossoms that appear in late spring/early summer and last through fall, growing to 4 feet (1 m) tall and 5 feet (1.5 m) wide in moist soil. Siberian Iris has grassy foliage and lavender flowers in early summer, growing to 3 feet (0.9 m) in each direction and being very tolerant of wet soil.

Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) is a shrub that thrives in wetland conditions and can grow up to 10 feet tall with lovely white flowers. Queen-of-the-prairie offers oodles of showy, pink or white blossoms in June and July, and can grow to quite a clump, 5 feet (1.5 m) tall and 4 feet (1 m) wide.

Muhly grass enjoys damp soil and pond edges, and most types of sedge do well in wet, sandy soil. Winterberry (Ilex verticulata) is a tall shrub that produces shiny red berries in fall and can tolerate standing water. Cinnamon fern, royal fern, painted fern, marsh fern, holly fern, and sensitive fern are moisture-loving ferns that thrive at the edge of ponds.

When selecting water-tolerant plants for your garden, it's always a good idea to consult your local greenhouses or nurseries for specific recommendations or your local extension service for the best plants for your particular region.