Patio Ponds and Gardens

When you receive your water lily in the mail, try to avoid breaking roots and leaves from the plant when you remove it from the box. When the plant is planted properly, it will recover very quickly from shipping and handling shock.

Pots and Pans

Pot the plant. Pots that are deeper than wide should have holes in the bottom. Those that are shallow and wide, i.e., trays, need not have holes in the bottom. The reason for the holes is to allow the soil to breathe. Trays need no holes because the soil is able to breathe through its comparatively large surface area. Lilies will grow in proportion to the size of the pot, with a given soil mix. Ten gallon pots are good for a couple of seasons.

Trays are useful in shallow ponds. Kitty litter trays work well for small ponds and larger trays, of course, work well for larger ponds. The shortcomings of trays are that in ponds with koi or goldfish, the tray gives the fish more surface area to dig in than a regular pot does, and if the tray is particularly large, it is hard to lift and likely to spill while you place it in your pond.

Cover any holes with a layer or two of newspaper, shade cloth, or window screen - anything that helps hold the dirt in is fine.

Add enough soil to the bottom of the pot to reach slightly above the holes. On top of this, add a few cups of amended soil. Clean up any loose roots. If the plant has long roots, spread them out an ‘wrap’ them with the soil as it goes into the pot. Lumps of roots may rot before they grow, and since lillies are heavy feeders, this gets the roots out into the soil where the fertilizer is so that the fertilizer has less chance of leaching out into the pond water before the plant can get to it.

Fish Proofing

If the pond has fish in it, stop the soil about 3” from the top of the pot, add a thin layer of sand (1/2”), then a thick layer of 1/2″ to 1″ lava rock like people use for their filter boxes or for gas grills or just some gravel if you can’t get lava rock. Lava rock is better because it is lighter but still protects the plant from the fish. Cover the rocks with a 1 to 2 inch thick layer of sand, and place in your pond.