I've grown water lilies for years but I've never had this problem. I hope someone can give me some help.
As I'm sure everyone knows I don't like the granular potting stuff that you've seen in stores because my fish dig in it and the plants end up floating. Even if I put rocks on top of the pots they still manage to dig. But I don't think I'm going to have much of a choice because I'm loosing my water lilies quickly. They aren't growing. It's that plain and simple. I'm sort of convinced it's the dirt that I'm using. I have my plants in a top soil that I purchased at a nursery in South Carolina while visiting with AngelSong. The guy there recommended this stuff so I trusted him and used it. I'm not sure it was the right thing to do. When I pulled up my lotus it had absolutely no roots at all. So I pulled up the worse of the water lilies and again...no roots. I pulled another lily...same thing. Folks, I have a small fortune wrapped up in these special water lilies that simply aren't growing at all. The only lily that's growing is the one white unnamed lily that I saved when I divided up. And even it only has 3 leaves and they are very small.
So....do you think I have much of a chance with these if I repot? And if I do what do you suggest that I use? I'll add that I have fed them with water plant tablets.
Oh, one more question. (sorry)..Do you "plant" your floating hearts? Or let them be a floater plant?
Thanks for your attention and any suggestions you may have.
This message was edited Tuesday, Jun 10th 8:29 AM
Water Lily Question
Mine look bad this year too, it's not been warm enough for them to do anything yet. They have very few pads and they are small. I did have my first blossom today, it looked as sorry as the pads. Just as soon as the water warms up the lilies should take off.
If they are pot bound, then I would definitely repot them, if not I'd leave them alone. I just use garden dirt and fertilize with whatever kind of plant spikes that I can find, the higher the middle number, the better the blooms.
If you have koi they may be nipping at the leaves and crippling them.
we have always used just plain garden soil from our own garden and have never had a problem. A friend uses plain, unscented clay cat litter and he is convinced that he will never go back to dirt with his plants.
Just not sure without chemical testing of your soil if it could be the soil of something else. Sorry I can't be of more help to you.
Pot your floating hearts. If you float them, they will never grow to potential or bloom to potential.
Thanks for the suggestions. I ended up repotting the 2 worse lilies in the granular "soil". I certainly hope it works. I'm really crossing my fingers that they start to grow here pretty soon. Our weather has been extremely horrible for water gardening. Rain rain rain....and very cool temps for this time of year. Geez...if I can't garden then I want to ride my sled. :)
Thanks azsteve for the input. I have my floating hearts in dirt but they don't look good either but per your suggestion I'm leaving them alone.
Sledder, take heart. I really think it's the weather, which has been ugly everywhere in the north this spring. I'm in southern Michigan. It was 60 degrees and raining here today. I only have one hardy lily in my pond, but it's not happy, and the water hyacinths and papyrus are miserable. Even the snails just showed up from wherever they hide during the winter, and I wouldn't be surprised if they disappeared again. Some of my plants are in the reddish granular stuff and others in heavy garden soil. None of them are doing well because the air and water are both too cold.
kneff, thank you!! I'll be curious how your water lily does so please let me know. I probably wouldn't be near as disgusted if I hadn't purchased a couple expensive lilies. I won't do that again!!
Sledder, what lilies did you just buy? I'm curious as I have many lilies and always am looking for more.
August Koch Blue Tropical, Helvola Mini, Steven Strawn Red Hardy. If any of them actually amount to anything I'll be happy to share. So far...nada... :(
Everyone having trouble with lillies! At least I'm not the only one! I just put a 90 gal pre-form in in May. I didn't go expensive on the plants (just bought pre-potted ones from Wal-Mart). My water canna and water iris never did anything, so I took the pot apart, and found rotted tubers. I threw them away, and re-used the pots for some natural cattail from a local pond (the cattail is doing great). Now onto the water lilly issue, all my lillies are sending up shoots, but as the leaves are opening, they are covered with little holes, and the edges of the leaves are all jaggedy (looks like something was eating them). Could my goldfish have been eating them? I don't have koi, too expensive, and too large for my pond. Could it be snails or tadpoles? I am totally baffled.
Sledder,
As far as potting goes, I tried some of that new aquatic soil by Schultz. I take a normal pot, line the bottom with quilt batting, and put a layer of that soil in, then place my bare-root plant, and surround with more soil and a fertilixer tablet, then top it all off with about 2 inches of pea gravel. This seems to work fine for me, but if you have koi, that could be the difference, they are a larger fish than I have.
Anyway, anybody with suggestions on the lillies, please post. Thanks in advance.
Dave
Sledder, I don't have any of those. I gave up tropical lilies last year as it seemed so expensive to grow them for a few months and then lose them. I have tried many many ways to keep them through the winter including under the benches in my friends orchid greenhouse and they just didn't do well the second year if they did make it. I do have a few different red hardly lilies but none ready to divide right now. Let me know later if you have lost yours and I will see what I can do for ya.
Thank you Ponditis!! If these don't do something pretty soon I'll let you know. I sent an email to the company I purchased them from so let's see if they answer me. To the best of my knowledge I've done everything I was suppose to so I'm curious how they treat me.
I would also try your way if I was in the same circumstances, Sledder. Good luck in dealing with them.
My tropicals are just now starting to grow quick..we finally got some hot weather. My hardies are blooming and growing good in regular garden soil......but the lotus are in kitty litter from Walmart the cheapest kind thats clay and unscented. Works great and is lighter in weight..the fish are small so they don't dig in it.Field topsoil can have all kinds of toxic herbicides in it.Corn fields can grow grass relative plants OK, but any broadleafed plants may not grow if the field ws treated with a broadleaf herbicide.Been there had that happen. No more field soil unless I know where it comes from!
Sledder, here's an update. My pond water finally reached 65 degrees this week, and the hardy lily is finally growing well. There are three plants in the pot, and each has sent up a flower. My pond is mostly shady, so three flowers is a big deal. Water iris have also budded. The water hyacinth, however, is still doing very little. I guess it hasn't forgiven us for putting it in cold water. What is happening with your lilies?
Hi kneff! The tropical has a bud but the rest are still just "lingering". Very depressing to say the least. I had sent an email to the place I purchased them from online but never heard back. Oh, but they did send me an email for items they had on sale. My water hyacinth is doing well. Matter of fact everything is doing well....except the lilies. **sigh**
Happy Ponding!!
Sledder, be sure to leave feedback for that company in the Garden Watchdog since you never heard back from them. I find it hard to believe that they just dropped you like that. Maybe you should send another complaint in case the first one didn't get to them for some reason unknown to us.
Good luck.
Good suggestion Ponditis. Thank you for the reminder. I FINALLY have a bud on the tropical. The mini is trying since I replanted it and moved it but the red hardy is just barely hanging on. I sat it on the top ledge of the pond which seemed to help. In my picture in the photo forum you can see the mini and how it's trying. Poor little thing.
You know, I could handle the mini not doing that well. But the red hardy lily should be in it's glory. That's okay....it's the last time I'll order from them....guaranteed!!!
I think everyone...all across the US has had delayed blooming and growing of our water plants. Here in SC...we normally are having 100 degree weather but not this year.
Only 3 days of weather above 90 degrees, and constant rain and this means shade for your water ponds.
Water Lilies will not open their blooms if the sun is not shining.
We need to be patient and see what develops.
Stephanie
http://www.waterpondfarm.com
My waterlilies are blooming their little heads off creating a traffic stop here. I only wish I could get into the pond to tend to them but my DH and Doctor won't let me. Also have a lot of yellow floating hearts blooming out there and DH needs to get out there and weed them out of the pond as they are starting to take over a whole section.
What is the PH of your water in the pond. After all the many days of rain in SC, ours was very, very high. Even my wonderful Hardy Light Yellow that survive anything....is just not performing as usual.
Check the PH in your pond....my moms old methold of lowering the PH was to add about 1/4 cup of white vinagar with a cup of water and spread over the pond.
Or you can go buy the more expensive PH Down at your local stores.
waterpondfarm, who are you asking the PH of?
FYI my PH is 8.5. Quite alkali but the plants for the most part seem to thrive. My large (1/2 acre) and medium (almost 1/4 acre) ponds are both natural as we have a high water table here on our acreage. I have one above ground pond that is about a thousand gallons and another new linered pond that is about 4,000 gallons total.
A friend is digging another sand bottom pond near the big ones and we also plan on adding several more in that low lying area. The big pond is for fishing bluegill sunfish, catfish, and bass and all the other ponds are for raising koi.
whoops, I forgot in my above post to put what the latin name is for the floating yellow hearts. In the Lilypons catalog they are listed as
latin name: Nymphoides peltata
Lilypons says they are hardy to zone 6-11 and they have reproduced and lived now for four winters under the ice in zone 6.
edited to correct an error for posting this late at night when I should have been sleeping.
This message was edited Monday, Jul 7th 12:59 AM