Water Lettuce 
If you've ever gazed at the fuzzy green water lettuce as it delicately floats in the water garden, you understand the love affair that many gardeners have with this plant.
So, what's so great about it? Water lettuce is an easy-care aquatic plant that doesn't need potting, or really much attention at all. It just floats along in your pond, quietly soaking up nutrients helping to prevent the excessive growth of algae. It also shades the water, helping keep it cool while providing a cozy hiding place for the fish that live in the pond.
About the only thing water lettuce requires of you is figuring out what to do with all the extras. All summer long, they will multiply by producing little "babies," similar to a strawberry plant. As the summer heats up, they reproduce faster than you can find another place to grow them.
Water lettuce produces fuzzy, lime-green rosettes of leaves that result in what looks like little floating heads of lettuce. It does best in some shade and is hardy in Zones 9-11. And although it's difficult to overwinter, it doesn't mind being inside for a short time before it starts to decline. Creating a little indoor container water garden is a great way to avoid putting all the little water lettuces in the compost when a frost hits.
NOTE: This plant has been listed on Connecticut’s Invasive Plant List so it is no longer available for sale in the State of Connecticut. But if it is available in your area, it is a wonderful plant for filtration. TJB-INC has found small turtles and frogs resting on top of the leaves on the lettuce plants that we put into our display gardens. We prefer the variety called” Amazon Lettuce”.
