Top 5 Plants for Paludariums

From jewel-like orchids to climbing shinglers and plants that grow beside flowing streams, Navneeth and Giggs pick five species that can transform a paludarium into a living landscape.

By Navneeth & Giggs

Estimated read time: 3–4 minutes

A well-designed paludarium is more than an aquarium with a few plants growing above the waterline. It's a miniature ecosystem — one in which water, rock, wood, moss and foliage gradually merge into a living landscape. The most convincing paludariums draw their inspiration from tropical stream banks, forest floors and moss-covered cliffs. But getting there depends entirely on choosing the right plants — ones that don't just survive the humidity and light of an enclosure, but actually thrive in it.

Navneeth and Giggs, plant growers based in Thailand, picked five species for this — everything from a fern-like begonia with an almost supernatural range of colour forms, to a jewel orchid whose leaves shimmer like circuitry, to an aroid that grows its roots straight into moving water.

A Begonia That Refuses to Look the Same Twice

First on the list is Begonia pteridiformis, a species endemic to southern Thailand that grows wild on moist, moss-laden rocks. Its lance-shaped, fern-like leaves already set it apart from a typical begonia — but it's the plant's colour variability that has made it a favourite among collectors. In their own greenhouse, Navneeth and Giggs have observed the same species emerge in green, green with red spots, dark red with red spots, and dark red with pink spots — sometimes all from plants grown side by side.

“Its unusual form and remarkable colour variation make this one of the most collectable begonias for a paludarium.”

The Jewel Orchid You Might Already Own

A few entries later comes Macodes petola, celebrated not for its flowers but for foliage that seems to shimmer with an almost metallic network of veins. It's a plant collectors chase specifically for that effect.

But here's the twist: a similar-looking jewel orchid is regularly sold online under names like “Macodes marmorata” or “Macodes sanderiana” — names that, according to Navneeth and Giggs, don't actually belong to Macodes petola at all. The plant being sold is something else entirely, and knowing the difference matters for anyone building a collection around it.

Three More, Left for the Full Story

That's only two of the five. The remaining three take the list in very different directions — a shingling climber from Central and South America that Navneeth and Giggs call one of the easiest genera for a beginner to fall in love with; a forest-floor fern ally whose leaves look “touched with frost”; and an aroid so tied to flowing streams that its roots grow directly into the water column, forming what the authors describe as a living connection between land and water. Each comes with its own care specifics — humidity ranges, light levels, substrate choices, and the small mistakes that trip up first-time growers.

Read the full story in the magazine: The complete feature — all five plants, their exact humidity and temperature requirements, growing media, and Navneeth and Giggs' own greenhouse notes — is available in the July 2026 issue of The Weekend Aquarist.

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