I've asked this before and nobody had any explanation.
The first time I put water hyacinths in my pond, they grew like weeds, reaching a height of 14 to 16 inches above the water level and blooming beautifully. In the past few years, however, the same type of plants just float in the water and look sad - they hardly grow at all and certainly don't bloom. Other species; lotus, water lilies, cattails, pickerel weed, etc., all do well.
Has anyone an explanation for this phenomenon?
Water Hyacinth
Do you have koi? What do the roots look like? I had a similar problem which turned out to be constant grazing on the roots by koi. I also had a Ph spike (9) from an algae control product which may or may not have been a contributor. The algae control product, although it was supposed to be harmless to fish and plants, may also have been part of the problem. It's hard to sort out sometimes. I do know that I can't have them any more because as the koi grew in size they just turned the hyacinth into salad in a matter of hours. I havn't been able to turn up much info on water hyacinth and pond Ph.
I'm interested in your question as I also have had different results with Water Hyacinths. One year they just bloomed and bloomed and then other years they don't do much. This year they had blooms when I bought them and bloomed very nicely but so far they were the only blooms I haven't gotten any new ones.
I wonder if it's some how related to temperature swings? We had a really up and down spring here. The tropical water lillies were not happy. After the normal warm up it got too cold and they just sat there, sulking. They are just now growing an blooming again.
If you put the roots of the water hyacinth into pea gravel, you will get flowers. We found this out quite by accident. The koi were tearing up the water hyacinths so my husband put the WH into bog area of the pond, which is filled with pea gravel as a medium for our bog plants. We have had flowers every year since.
See the thread from March http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/820872/
You know it could be the idea of containment. or overcrowding. My friend has beautiful flowers and she has hers in a small area of the spillway they are not planted but very overcrowded your pea-gravel would keep them from free floating and I bet they are just packed in that space. When I picked mine up at the nursery they all had blooms and were really packed into a small space.
Here they are just a few days after I got them.
Mine haven't bloomed either but they have multiplied many times over (I have split them up a ton of times as well). I have 90% of mine in the stream which the fish cannot get into. I also throw a few into the pond in case the fish want to nibble them. Do I need to put the roots under the stones in the river? They are all just stuck on larger stones and kept from floating down the river that way.
Thanks for the comments. Koi are not the problem for me. My koi are in the lower pond away from tender plants. The WH suffer even in the upper pond where there are only goldfish. I'm thinking seriously about pH and availability of nutrients - my greatest success was before the other vegetation became as mature as it is now.
FYI: I put about 8 of my WH under rocks and they definitely took on a different shape then the ones kinda floating and "stuck" behind a rock in my stream. The ones with rocks on their stems are growing upwards instead of outwards (the floaters seem to grow wide instead of up). Maybe they will bloom for me. I will keep you posted on that.
anyone looked into a fish n plant friendly fertilizer for your water garden plants? there r places that sell them, n i"ve had good luck with blooms after adding to my little pond
Anyone have any water hyacinth to spare? I had two plants sent to me some time ago.. they did not survive.. I think my fish did them in. Well, now that I managed to kill my fish, I am ready for some more. I am not planning on putting any more fish in until next year. My waterlilies are finally starting to grow without the fish. There is absolutely no chance of it getting into a "natural" waterway here.. there are none! I live in a desert.
Tammie
LL/ in the areas around Lake Livingston the WHYA grow wild, literally/ n i know the caprock is short on anything but sand, n refineries, if i were home and could run out to my yd I'd willingly send tons/ I have to divide and burn them here. Whenever I plan a trip to any of the local lakes and woods I always tote buckets to bring home my loot, but I'm not sure how I'd mail these plants tho! What you may have is nites too cool, humidity too low in the desert to sustain them...
Tammie - If you are still looking for WH I have plenty to spare. D-mail me if you are interested. (or anyone else who would like some)
Another possibility for the WH not doing so well.... Have the trees around your pond grown? They (the WH) seem to do much better in full sun.
My little pond gets plenty sun.. the water even gets warm ... I have one orleander that has grown up next to it that provides a tiny bit of shade. If I had not killed the fish, I would cut it back but now it does not matter. I always worried about my fish when I had to spray soap on the orleander to kill aphids.. when it got wet, it would drip into the pond possibly.
Nanegoat66.. sending you d-mail.
tammie
I have a few to get rid of also. They won't overwinter here and if anyone with a more southern climate would want them I'd be glad to send them.
Just let me know in the next few days.
My pond is in full sun -- same as it was when the WHs were doing very well. It is almost as if the water has become toxic to this one species!
My new water hyacinth is growing! I am so proud of it! Can't wait to see if it actually blooms. I have only had 2 water lily blooms this year so hopefully this does something for me. since the fish died from my leaving the water on by mistake, the plants have grown to almost completely cover the surface, I can hardly tell there are lights in it at night now! Need to move some plants. I may move a couple small hyacinth babies into my little standing water gardens if they keep growing well. I am just so excited to have my plants growing well.. now we are having rain almost every day.. feast or famine.. two of my dogs are refusing to go out into wet grass! UGH! can you say spoiled rotten! They are definitely west texas desert dogs.
Tammie
New development! I can't tell whether this is coincidence or cause and effect, but I'l take it.
This spring I tried water hyacinths one more time. The only difference between this year and the previous several years was that I got in the pond back in early May and ripped out as many lotus as I could get my hands on (over the recent several years, the lotus had virtually taken over the water garden and were giving the lilies too much shade). A month later I added new starts of WH. Within a month they had quadrupled in volume and continue to flourish! The answer cannot be that the lotus had been shading out the WH, as the latter were always placed in a spot not shaded by the lotus. Whatever the explanation, it is hard for me to think that the lotus removal didn't have something to do with the change in the WH success.
Do any of you who have difficulties with WH also have heavy lotus populations?
You may have overwintered your same plants year after year, and therefore this may be irrelevant. But I thought it might be useful to know that since WH is so temperature tender, and prone to pests and rot when greenhoused... many nurseries and even major water gardening suppliers have them shipped in each season before reselling to their customers (Also often true with water lettuce & most underwater oxygenators.)
There are actually seven different species of WH, all usually marketed as one ubiquitous plant with the same lovely purple flower. The truth is, they all have a range of growth habits. Some are very compact and rarely bloom, some are leggy and floppy until they find the support and nutrition to grow the nearly two feet height they can achieve. As suggested in many posts above, letting the roots anchor in some nutrient rich mud/gravel/clay is the best way to encourage blooms. But some species just won't bloom the way others do.
Thanks for your comments.
I have never tried to overwinter WH - new starts from the water garden store are just too easy to come by. The previous problem I had was unrelated to variety. It was frankly a wasting phenomenon of unknown cause. Watch here this time next year to hear whether my WH grow or waste.