West Coast Morning Lilies

 

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The 4 lilies planted earlier this week, on the west side of the pond.  Shot in the morning … so flowers still closed.  Shhhh …

New growth’s evident.  Means they’ve happily adapted to their new pond.  Yahoo – I’d been looking for this.

The two ducks, plastic, came with the lilies.  They drifted together during the night.  Hmmm.

Full Size Water Lilies from Trickers

Added 5 full size water lilies from Trickers, yesterday.  Kathy n Steve had given us an Xmas gift cert for Trickers, which Jerie and I took to Trickers yesterday – and – they dug out 5 water lilies from an outdoor pond, put em in a big bag, handed them to me.

Once home, I grabbed my waders and the big bag of 5 water lilies, marched down the hill, put on my waders, and spent 30 min or so coaxing them into the pond bottom.  First time I’ve ever planted anything in a pond (up to now, I’ve just been dropping bulbs into the water).  This morning, they were still planted in the bottom.  Success – years of planting aquarium plants paid off.

These Trickers lilies were full grown, with pads and/or pre-flowering bulbs attached to 12″ t0 24″ stalks attached to a tuber.   Cept that one was pretty much all roots, no tuber.  Some tubers were horizontal.  One was vertical.

Apparently a big plant is divided up by cutting the tuber into sections, with each tuber big enough to host several water lily stalks and pads.  Typically 3 to 6″ tubers.  About 1 to 1.5″ thick.

Whereas the Lowes water lilies have no stalks or pads, and are packed inside a slightly weighted package held loosely together with 1″ light black plastic mesh.  About fist size – my fist.  Throw em in, they sink down, right side up, to the pond bottom.  And that’s it.  After a few weeks, they start showing small pads.

The Lowes lilies are no more than 3″ across now, and out of the 22 I planted a month or so ago, only 9 have shown to date.  So, the Trickers water lilies give the pond an immediate boost – in beauty and functionality (lilies, like all plants, serve to purify the water).