Pond plant help

Guernsey Donkey2

Our local garden centre has just a few pond plants in at the moment - can you tell me a. if these are invasive and b. are they suitable for oxygenating the water?  One is Brazilian Micro sword or Lilaeopsis and the other is Mares Tail - Hippuris.

Jellyfire

Choosing pond plants has proved a veritable minefield for me. There is so much conflicting information on the subject. As far as I could work out, Brazilian Micro sword is invasive and not to be recommended. Mares Tail - Hippuris vulgaris is a native and is fine, it is indeed the native one they are selling and not an imposter.
So many species are sold which are not really appropriate for domestic ponds, as they can either puncture liners (ie bullrush, greater spearwort)

The danger Ive found is that many garden centres are selling invasive species either wrongly named, or with frankly made up names. I have seen them printed on fancy looking colour photographic labels, but completley the wrong name for the pictured plant. Id check the foliage carefully to see it is the species it is being sold as.

Ive found this site http://www.devonpondplants.co.uk  (are links allowed, not sure? happy to remove if not) very useful for their honest opinions on how suitable each species is. I havent actually bought anything from them though so cant vouch for their plants, I only discovered it after stocking up, and promptly removed and destroyed a couple of plants as a result!

Guernsey Donkey2

Thanks for passing on your knowledge Jellyfire.  You are right - it is a minefield - there are so many plants, some are invasive and yet they are for sale in GC's or online. Some of mine haven't taken whereas others are doing fine in our pond even though our PH is way above the recommended level. I will try the Mares Tail this year - hopefully it will survive the winter too.

LG_

I have found the Devon Pond Plants site (recommended by @Victoria Sponge) very useful for information too - and I bought some plants from him. They didn't look as 'polished' as the ones I got from Puddleplants, but have grown on as well if not better. I'm about to get few more.