How Submerged Flowers Can Turn Your Aquarium into an Underwater Garden

Some people just have to have fresh cut flowers around the house. I’m not one of those people, but I can nonetheless see the appeal: they add a flash of color and vibrant life to any living space. Personally, I think that you can achieve the same thing more successfully with a professional aquascape. But why can’t we have the best of both worlds? Isn’t there a way to combine the color of fresh flowers with the beauty of a serene aquascape?

Well, one option would be to create a flowering paludarium, but I have something a little bit more ambitious in mind. There’s a new trend that’s been sweeping weddings: the submerged flower.

Quite pretty, aren’t they?

Florists and wedding planners create these dainty centerpieces by wrapping string or a thin metal wire around the stem of a flower, and then anchoring it to the bottom of a glass. The buoyant flowers naturally orient themselves vertically and voila! You’ve got a submerged flower.

You could easily use this technique in your custom aquascape. Whenever you get fresh cut flowers, rather than putting them in your vase, you could add a few weights and plop them into your aquarium.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. A flower in an aquarium? That might look a little bit odd. Sure, but you can make just about anything fit in an aquascape with enough creativity. You could build your aquascape like an underwater vase, leaving an empty space in the layout specifically for a beautiful bouquet.

This adds a near endless array of possibilities for your aquascapes. As much as I love aquariums, the one drawback is they’re fairly static. Your plants will grow and your fish will swim around, but for the most part your aquarium will look the same every day. Adding freshly cut flowers to your aquascape allows you to change your layout weekly. Just think of how the bright scales of your fish would accent the delicate petals of the flowers. A goldfish swims alongside an orange lily; a fiery red beta circles a red rose; an azure tetra nibbles at a blue lotus.

You know what this kind of reminds me of? That floating flower from the Disney movie Beauty and The Beast. It would be so much more eye-catching if a school of red fish darted around the flower.