Growing Land Plants Underwater

Michael Langerman
3 min readMar 7, 2020

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Among the huge variety in land plants, there are many that are suitable for aquaponics systems (roots growing in water).

Here are examples from a longer list.
Spider plant.

Ornamental Sweet Potato.

Wandering Jew.

Aloe Vera.

Pothos.

Some plants have the even more fascinating power to adapt for underwater life!
A common household plant, Pothos, is able to grow on land, underwater, and both at the same time!

Another common household plant, the Peace lily, is also adaptive to underwater life.
Here, you can see 2 Peace lily plants growing underwater.

Conversion of terrestrial plants into aquatic plants is an interesting journey, with many questions and very few studies to help on this subject.

The land plants I choose for growing underwater are those that originally propagate from cuttings.

Here are a couple examples of land moss that I grow underwater.
And again, these are just a few out of many thousand different types of land moss that grow everywhere.
Please check my previous videos for details on how I convert these and other land plants for underwater life.

So far, all land (terrestrial) plants that I converted to aquatic life responded negatively to the presence of soil in water.
In other words — I wash land plants clean, before placing them underwater.
Notably, the Peace lily and Pothos growth rate is slower underwater compared to the same plants growing on land.
And some moss grow faster underwater compared to the same moss on land.

Nature is full of wonders and revelations waiting for you to discover.
Have fun and happy plants :)

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