How to plant your plants!

[fish at element_plus.com]

Hi folks,

Daft question of the day!

How do you plant your plants?  What I'm getting at is: when you are putting new plants in a tank, how do you go about planting them without a) damaging them, and b) the plants floating up to the top of the tank?

I have found that even with plants that have a monster root network already (possibly even more so with those!), it is difficult to persuade them to stay rooted in the substrate, and I don't want to push too hard in case I kill the plants.  The most effective way I have found so far is to put lead planting strips round the stem and leave them for a time so that the plant anchors itself, however I'm concerned that these weights will damage the plants (and are they really made of lead, if so isn't that a nasty thing to put in the tank for both plants and fish?).

Thanks all,

Dom