How To Plant Water Lilies In A Natural Pond

Care Of H2o Lilies: Growing Water Lilies And H2o Lily Care

By: Jackie Carroll

Water lilies (Nymphaea spp.) are the perfect finishing touches for a garden pool or swimming, adding practicality as well equally beauty to a water feature. Fish use them as hiding places to escape predators, and as shady retreats from the hot summertime dominicus. Plants growing in a pond assistance keep the h2o clean and aerated, then you'll spend less time on pond maintenance. Permit'due south have a look at how to grow a h2o lily.

Water lily plants can exist divided into two types:

Hardy – Hardy types are best for northern climates where the water freezes in winter. Every bit long every bit the roots of hardy specimens are below the level where the water freezes, they will reappear the following leap.
Tropical – Tropical water lilies won't survive in cold water and must exist brought indoors for wintertime in all only the warmest areas. Many growers treat them every bit annuals, replanting them each year. Otherwise, remove them from the pond, clean them up, and store them in a bucket of moist sand in a absurd basement before the first freeze. Tropical water lily plants can be further divided into 2 groups: day bloomers and night bloomers. White night bloomers expect spectacular with nil more than than moonlight to illuminate them, but blues, purples, reds, and pinks are very difficult to see in the nighttime. Avoid these colors unless the swimming is illuminated by artificial calorie-free at night.

How to Grow a H2o Lily

A pond or pool covered in water lilies is bonny, but complete coverage prevents light from penetrating into the h2o, choking out other establish and animal life. Growing water lilies in containers helps keep them from spreading and taking over a pocket-sized pond and it makes water lily intendance much easier.

When you are growing h2o lilies, use a large plastic pot with several holes punched in the sides and lesser. Fill the pot to inside 3 inches (8 cm.) of the top with silt, loam, or clay soil and mix in a small amount of tedious-release fertilizer labeled for utilise with aquatic soil.

Plant the rhizome close to one side of the pot at a 45-degree angle with the eye pointing up. Cover the soil with a layer of pea gravel, keeping the gravel away from the superlative of the rhizome equally much as possible. The gravel keeps the soil from floating off or washing out of the pot.

Place the pot in the bottom of the pond, adjusting the depth to that recommended for your specific multifariousness. Nearly call for a depth of betwixt 6 and eighteen inches (xv-46 cm.). If necessary, you can raise the depth by placing the pot on top of rocks.

NOTE: For those having fish in their h2o garden, h2o lilies should NOT exist potted in regular potting soil, equally this contains a lot of organic material that volition eventually rot and foul the water. Remove whatsoever rotting organic fabric from your pond or water garden, as this is a breeding ground for anaerobic bacteria and pathogens and may add unwanted excess nutrients to feed algae blooms. Instead, pot h2o lilies, and whatever other pond plant, in a heavy clay soil and cover with fist sized rock, and and so river rock to forbid fish from rooting around in the pot and sending the planting medium into the pond. A few unproblematic preventative steps up front are far easier to have than trying to treat sick and dying fish later.

Water Lily Care

Once planted, taking care of water lilies is like shooting fish in a barrel. In fact, most require no care at all other than dividing them every three or 4 years to rejuvenate them and to keep them from spreading into unwanted areas.

This article was last updated on 05/17/21