Do I HAVE to use aquatic compost to plant plants in the pond?

You can. Provided there's been no fertilizer added or chemicals of any description then yes, use garden soil.

Ive used John Innes and peat based composts under sand in my planted tropical aquariums for years so they're an alternative too.

The only thing you might want to do is add a bit of weight...a few large inert stones to stop the pot toppling over

Thank you. I've had opposing advice from various websites I've visited, but I think I'll have a go with a mixture of compost and garden soil.

I did buy a couple of bags of aquatic compost, but at £5 per bag, which does just a few pots, it's pretty expensive

I certainly wouldn't use well rotted compost it will release far too many nitrates into the water which can cause problems for fish and wildlife and cause your pond to go green. You could mix you garden soil with a lot of grit - but then you would need to buy the grit! B & Q sell 20 litre bags of aquatic compost for £4.50 and at least this way you will know that the mix is right for using in a pond. If my memory serves me well, which it doesn't always these days, we used the poor sandy soil that was here when we bought the garden along with course grit which we had plenty of for the alpines.

Thanks for that.

The latest advice courtesy of Monty Don on 'Gardeners' World' was that you need not use ANY compost for most water plants but instead just gravel or pebbles. As most water plants get their nutrient from the water itself, and you need very low nitrogen conditions, this would seem to make sense.
Anyway, I am about to try it out with my blue water irises from seed which are currently growing very healthily in almost pure vermiculite, so perhaps Monty is right! There may be a big difference between marginals which grow in wet soil, and true water plants which root in shallow water however.

Yes, I saw that on Gardeners' World. It could be worth trying, certainly grit is cheaper than aquatic compost. I bought some little water plant fertiliser thingies, you put one in the pot when you plant them up.

Did I miss a programme or did Monty Don's pond move forward about a year in one programme? It looks lovely, but then it would! I'm not sure about all the rocks around, it, it makes it a bit inaccessible, I think.

I used subsoil for the water lilies in our pond and pure gravel for the irises. Seems to have worked in both cases.

I have never used aquatic soil or any other, when I need to split a plant I just top the basket up with gravel to hold them in place, our fish are very healthy and some are over 30 yrs old...

This is interesting to read...I bought a waterlily yesterday (deep water variety). It came in a pot, around 4'' wide/6'' deep and I need to transplant it for the pond...what would you all recommend I do?

Like you, Canalhopper - I find aquatic compost really expensive and I have to make a 100km round trip to get it.

Aquatic compost is just a scam as it is simply soil that's low in nutrients, nothing 'special' about it, and to travel 100km to get it would be ridiculous! Look at nature. Water lilies grow well in rivers and ponds where nobody plants them, and they just root into the mud at the bottom, built up from soil and detritus washed into the river. Even in the smallest pond a natural soil builds up at the bottom and lilies and things soon outgrow their baskets and root into this. One of my water lilies seems to have somehow 'walked' about ten feet during the winter!

So, do I even need to put it in a bigger pot at all, then Bertie? Or a bigger pot, with gravel - as Lincs suggests?

My pond has only been there for two years.

I'd do as Lincs suggests and use a bigger pot with gravel. It does keep the lily under control and you can move it in and out of the pond when you are cleaning it.

Thanks :)