Water Gardening: Container water garden winterizing, 1 by darlindeb

darlindeb wrote:
I read an article years ago about some place in Colorado that had a massive display of water lilies in a park or botanical garden. They would take their water lilies out of the water treat them with a fungicide and store in damp peat moss till spring.

I have used this technique with lotus tubers after the leaves have all turned brown. I would hose them off and treat them with Captan (spelling?) fungicide powder. The first time I did this I didn't lose any. The second time I tried doing it I lost a few to rot. I placed the tubers inside a peatmoss filled bag and placed the bags in large coolers and boxes in my garage (which doesn't freeze). I used gloves and a face mask when working with this powder. Also, they were rinsed thoroughly in the spring and I let them float on top of the water for a while in containers. This fungicide is toxic to fish, so keep that in mind if you have any small gold fish in your container garden(s).

Here is a photo of lotus tubers I was getting ready to store in peatmoss.