Wetland Bushes

Wetland Plants for Sale at Nature Hills Nursery

Choosing a property with a wetland comes with an opportunity to be responsible, and that responsibility starts by choosing the right plants. You’ll find a delightful array of wetland plants for sale at Nature Hills Nursery, giving you the chance to steward your land for beauty and wildlife to help butterflies, frogs, fish, salamanders, otters, dragonflies, heron and other water birds.

Native plants that love moist soil and grow in swamps and marshland are plentiful. Layer together marsh shrubs and other wetland plants to retain soil, filter runoff and provide habitat.

Large-scale wetland trees like River Birch, seedless Siouxland Cottonwood, Weeping WIllow, Swamp White Oak and Bald Cypress make great choices to anchor your wetland planting. However, trees are not recommended for use over septic systems drainage fields.

On specialized wetland areas like septic system drainage fields, stick with water-loving perennials like Swamp Milkweed and other swamp plants. Nature Hills Nursery makes it easy to shop for plants for wetland gardens. You’ll even find expertly picked, specially curated native collections, such as our Spring Pocket Rain Garden and Summer Pocket Rain Garden.

Choose Shrubs as Wetland Plants for Color, Flowers and Berries

Shrubs that work as wetland plants include Red Osier Dogwood (Cornus) and Rose of Sharon (Althea). Using just these two plant species would provide a full range of benefits. These include spring bloom, outstanding summer flowers and screening, berries for birds, and gorgeous winter color.

Try them in long, naturalized drifts for an easy-care landscape. You'll mass plant them using a regular checkerboard-style planting pattern.

But in a drift planting, you won't be covering a square or rectangle of land. Instead, you'll cover an informal shape that nestles into your unique landscape.

When making a landscape drift, start with a single plant on either end. Then, contour in several spots that are deeper from front to back.

In some places, you'll have three or more swamp plants deep. In others, you could have seven or more wetland trees and shrubs to create an organic line that flows easily across the lay of your land.

Enjoy this process of gently improving your wetlands. Add the heavier condensation of dynamic evergreen Dwarf Hinoki Cypress shrubs, then splash a few frothy slurps of Japanese Anemone about here and there.

Wetland zones are fanciful places. Be bold in your choices, and brave in your willingness to do your part to improve the ecology of our natural world.

Design Ideas for Plants for Wetland Gardens

Wetlands are vital to keeping our environment healthy and provide habitat for certain wildlife species. Planned rain gardens help filter unwanted chemicals and fertilizer runoffs from roofs, streets and agricultural fields.

Many commercial properties and residential landscapes are creating rain gardens. These planned features support our water supply on a local level.

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Create a berm and swale system to help corral storm water. On the raised berm, plant high-performance swamp bushes for height and other ornamental features.

Easy-care Elderberry Bushes are lovely plants that will fill your early summer with wide, lacy blooms and delight your neighborhood butterflies. Watch as the blooms develop into dark purple Sambucus berries.

Vigorous Upright Red Chokeberry makes it easy to create a natural-looking drift. In fact, this native spreading plant will do most of the work for you.

You'll also get blaze-red, scarlet and orange fall foliar fruit flagging the showy fruit for local songbirds. This desirable trait brings extraordinary fall color home.

Do maintain your wetlands. Remove unplanned trees as soon as you see them, and plant plenty of swamp flowers in the form of wetland perennials to crowd out and suppress weeds.

What Type of Swamp Plants Live in Wetlands?

In this rigorous anaerobic environment, wetland bushes have developed adaptive strategies to avoid root rot. For example, submerged roots can put forth adventitious roots along their length — or develop shallow, fibrous, intertwined root systems.

Hardwood Bald Cypress is one of the wetland trees that develops pneumatophores, or knobby knees. It's thought these specialized roots act as buttresses to help stabilize the weight of these tall trees across a span of unstable, swampy ground.

Many swampland plants are actually widely adaptable to a variety of soil types. Decorate your vernal pool — a seasonal depressional wetland — with their rough-hewn charm.

Why Work to Save Wetlands?

A wetland is defined as any area of land that is covered by water for a minimum of three weeks a year. Some wetlands have standing water year-round.

Most wetlands average only a month or less of standing water. The combination of periodic rain and low-lying land can create petite wetlands in suburban lots, too.

The word “wetland” can be also used in many applications when describing various soil types and their drainage. The length of saturation of the soil will determine which plants and trees will grow best.

Other considerations are the depth of water and amount of sunlight the wetland receives on a daily basis. The first consideration is selecting wetland plants and trees that are hardy within your growing zone.

It might surprise you that various Summer Red Maple tree, Flowering Dogwoods and Flowering Redbud trees are planted as wetland trees. Although they can't tolerate standing water, several types of plants can work as wetland bushes. Boxwood shrubs, Azalea, Rhododendron and Mount Airy Fothergilla will all appreciate near-constant dampness and rich soil.

Wetlands are also called fens, prairie potholes, vernal pools, marshes and swamps. As more and more people are becoming aware of the value of wetlands, they inquire about the availability of a wetland plants nursery.

Wetlands have the highest species diversity of all ecosystems. They provide habitat for turtles, amphibians, waterfowl and shorebirds, such as ducks and waders.

Check out the wetland plants for sale at Nature Hills Nursery. Not only are we America's largest online plant nursery, but we’ve been a family-owned business since 2001. We’re also a proud subscriber to Plant Sentry™, the Greenspace Guardian.

Marshland Plants Play a Deeper Role in Wetlands

During high water and runoff seasons, wetlands act as a natural flood control. Some areas of the United States are even using wetlands as a natural sewage treatment system.

Wetland plants act as a natural filtration system. Their extensive root systems remove sediments and toxic chemicals from our water supplies.

The wetland plants you find at Nature Hills Nursery can beautify a pond, rain garden or low-lying seasonal depressional wetland in your landscape. Do something amazing with all areas of your property.