Al, you once mentioned a place where you shopped for these type of ornamental plants. I think it was located in the DFW area. Did you purchase some there and how did that turn out? Would you do it again? And if so, which have performed the best? Easy to control, color etc? Lessons learned? Hope I am not putting in a bad spot here. I know "it depends" on a lot of things when it comes to growing these types of plants in one's pond.
Tracy, I bought my lilies from Creative Water Gardens in Garland. They cost a little more, but they're potted and actively growing, so you can see the leaf size and flower colors. But, be careful with places that sell plants for koi or aquarium plants. They are easy to manage in water like that, but not so much when they're unrestrained.
I couldn't comfortably recommend a variety, but here's a few pics of mine with, and the time they're been in the pond.
These are 3 one year old lilies that were originally potted . I almost always pot my lilies for 2 reasons. One, if you plant them to move to another BOW, there is the potential for invasives to be moved with them. I thoroughly rinse and hand inspect the entire plant for freeloaders, and potting the plant keeps the plant handy for inspection down the road. Also, I move lilies to deeper water when we get water drops. It can be hard to plant lilies in water 4' deep, but it is easy to plant them when that same water is 1' deep in the summer. These are on the shoreline right now, but the were 2' down when I actually planted them.
These are some peach Colorado lilies that have been in the pond for 6-7 years. These haven't been aggressive spreaders, but I'm starting to see them pop up at various areas around the pond.
If you look above the peach lilies, you can see a large patch above these. These lilies are probably 100 to 150' from the shore, and are in 4-5' of water when the pond's at full pool. The LMB love this batch.
This pic of the original batch of lilies that were planted 8-10 years ago. These lilies have survived the drought years, and never failed to come back, even after being above the water line for several months. These are colored like RAH's, but I'm not sure they're the same. This area at the dam traps the lilies on 3 of the 4 sides, and so I think the spread is pretty well confined to the north bank at this point.
