The life cycles of Typha and Iris are similar, i.e., they are both herbaceous perennial plants that grow and bloom during spring and summer, die back every autumn/winter, and then grow again from their rootstock in spring. However, in this study it remained difficult to compare Iris and Typha directly in terms of their growth and nutrient removal capacity, because the conditions for plant growth may have varied between the two species prior to the start of the experiment.