Plants for surrounding pond area

[DeathMetalMum]

We are adding a small pond to our garden and I am looking for plants for the edge of the pond, round the back area. Pond will be in part sun probably smaller than 1m square due to the size of our garden so, nothing huge. We do have two cats so I'm unsure about irises (which I love) as I believe they are allergic. Any suggestions?

A small Acer would not overshadow the pond. We have some Persicaria around our pond, it give cover for the frogs and newts and the worker bees love the flowers.

Immediately at the back area of mine I've got a mix of astilbes, geums and lady's mantle, then behind that some wafty grasses of unknown variety, interspersed with self seeding poppies and granny's bonnets.

I've always been a bit puzzled by planting suggestions which assume that the area round a pond will be boggy. Perhaps that's true of a natural pond, but if like me you have a pond made with a liner, the ground around it is just as dry as anywhere else in the garden.

The main things for me would be;
i) cover for little creatures, preferably some of it being evergreen (eg pachysandra, bergenia, London pride)
ii) some wafty height to make a nice contrast with the flat water. An acer or similar with an arching shape looks lovely over water. Grasses and ferns look amazing.

I like pps' suggestions, persicaria sounds great.

I also put a few logs near the pond for invertebrates to shelter.

In the pond itself, I do have iris (my pond is v small) but as long as there is some plant with upstanding leaves, the damsel flies will be happy and others can crawl out when they need to.

Our frogs really like the dense planting of alpine strawberries.

I've got creeping Jenny, hostas and a trailing from my Virginia creeper around my pond.