Cool, moist shoreline soils provide habitat such shoreline restoration plants such as the Blue Flag Iris, Marsh Marigold, Swamp Rose, and Sweet Flag. Additionally, Cup-Plant, Swamp Milkweed, New England Aster, Great Blue Lobelia, Monkeyflower, and Ironweed provide beauty, diversity, and stability to the water's edge. Water Shield, Water Celery, Hardstem Bulrush, Pickerel Weed, and White Water Lily also create underwater habitat important for spawning fish.

One of the shoreline restoration plants is the Blue Flag Iris. This native perennial plant is two to three feet tall and produces clumps of vertical leaves that are sword-shaped and up to 2½ feet tall. These leaves are pale bluish green to green and hairless. An individual leaf is up to one inch across near the base, with smooth margins and parallel veins, and tapering to a point. It should be cultivated in wet to moist conditions, partial to full sun, and a rich organic soil. In light shade, this plant often fails to flower, and it tends to decline in abundance if conditions become too dry. The foliage is rarely bothered by disease or insects. To maintain the viability of the seeds, they should not be allowed to dry out – store them with some moist sand.

The Marsh Marigold, another of the shoreline restoration plants, is a hardy, succulent perennial plant designed for the marsh and waterside and is distinguished from other species by its broad, heart or kidney shaped leaves, and, in spring, by its bright yellow blossoms. The leaves are also dark green, typically three to seven inches wide, usually with two lobes at the base. The stems are hollow, eight to twenty-four inches tall and mostly arising from the base. The flowers, as previously mentioned, are in clusters of one to seven, a waxy yellow and one to two inches wide on long stalks above the foliage in early spring. It lives primarily on the edges of ponds and moist soils, shallow waters and hardwood swamps. It thrives best in open or partly shaded areas.

Another of the shoreline restoration plants is the Swamp Milkweed. The plant has has a distinctive flower that is shaped like an hourglass, wide at the top and base, but constricted in the middle. The “base” is formed by five pigmented sepals that fold away from the rest of the flower, which includes five united petals. Each petal forms a “hood” over a stamen, or “horn” and the relative configurations of these two structures are useful in identifying various milkweed species. In the case of Swamp Milkweed, the horn is longer than its hood and curves away from it toward the flower center. Swamp Milkweed grows to four feet in height, its flowers forming an umbel-like cluster at the top of the stalk; side branching may occur in large, robust plants. Because of its showy multiple flowers, Swamp Milkweeds are easily found by bees and butterflies, which feast on milkweed nectar.

The nursery in which to find these shoreline restoration plants is TN Nursery. They can assist you with your wholesale needs.