Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Balance of plants in the environment Lillies in new pond

I am building a 1 arce pond in southwest Ohio and would like to have a small portion of my 4' and less water to have lillies. What is the best hardy lillie for this depth and how do I control the spreading of the lillies? Could I simply plant the lillies in plastic barrels to control the spreading or is there a better way?
Thanks

Planting in pots or barrels both controls their spread and allows you to move them. Mine are planted in the bottom because I want lots of them.

Make sure you keep out muskrats out. I had different kinds of lilies planted when I first dug my pond. They were really doing good until the rats moved in. Destroyed them. Then I destroyed the rats.

Look for lily varieties that list the amount of spread and approximate depth they grow. Smaller spread means slow growing. Large spread means deeper and faster growing. Keeping lilies in pots minimizes the absorption of nutrients from the pond and soon causes them to become pot bound and decrease in number of blooms produced. If you buy the right variety of lily you will never have to worry about controlling their spread. Lilies can easily be controlled with glyphosate based herbicides applied to the floating leaves. For listed growing depths add usually 12"-30" depending on the variety when they are growing 'free' in a dirt bottom pond. Clear water also promotes them to generally grow deeper. I have found that most 'large' yellow varieties tend to grow deeper than the other colors of large pinks, reds, and changable. However there are dwarf and small varieties of yellow. The type of rhizome also determines depth and spread area as noted in my 2 PBoss Magazine water lily articles.

Read through these topics and posts in the link from the Archives for lots of good information about water lilies in ponds. Some of the good varieties are also mentioned.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=110943#Post110943

Bill thanks for the good information. I will have an area in my pond that I want the lillies to stay contained in that will be 4', have a 3:1 slope, the shore will be lined with natural rock riprap and the area will have pennisula's on each side the pennisulas will have rip rap to 6' and 4' respectivly. Could you reccomend a white lilly that would grow to a max depth of 4' and tend to stay confined to this area? If you know a good source for the above lilly that would be graet as well.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

The white hardy lilies are my least favorite maybe because I started with wild whites and they were nothing but trouble -spreading fast and growing deep - a real nuisance. The hybrid whites are not like the wild whites in terms of spreading rate. Hardy whites as a group do tend to grow deeper than the pinks and reds. The whites are not IMO as pretty as the other more attractive, appealing, and sometimes vibrant colors. A lot of the yellows are also larger types of hardy water lilies. There are a lot of varieties of hybrid whites but most of them are large-medium and large types with spread of 5 to 8ft occasionally 9-10ft. Smallest white ones that I could find were varieties named: Jasmine 30", Hermine 30", Candida 30-36", White Sultan (Strawn) 3'-5', Virginalis 3'-4', Walter Pagels 2'-3', Hilite 2'-5'. Keep in mind that all varieties of smaller spreading water lilies have proportionally smaller flowers compared to the larger spreading water lilies.

The hardy water lilies are IMO very good fish habitat and I rarely see them becoming over abundant in ponds with compacted bottoms. People who choose the better colorful pond varieties very rarely have trouble that I've heard about. The complaints are usually the lilies do not spread fast enough giving lots more color to the pond surface. The leaves provide shade and tend to keep the water slightly cooler. The vertical stems tend to be relatively far apart allowing some fairly good refuge areas and the predators to easily hunt through the underwater forests of shaded stems. They are fairly easily controlled with proper herbicides and spread is not rampant like that of many of the submerged aquatic weeds.

Bill I believe i will go with the Walter Pagels and some type of peach / orange lily to add to the color. Is there any problem with planting various different lillies in groupings? Could you recommend a peach / orange lily similar in shape, size and depth to the Walter Pagel lily?
Thanks

I believe I will plant the Walter Pagel and Little Sue lillies in my pond. I am hoping to establish a area about 30' wide to a depth of 3' or 4' deep. I will plant 1 of each lily in groups of 2 about 7' apart in about 2' of water. I will plant in the spring when the water is about 60 degrees.

Does this sound like a good plan?

I have never had luck with the "orange" lilies. The whites, reds, pinks, and yellows have all done well for me.

Is it to late in the season to plant lilies?

I plan on planting in the spring when the water temp is around 60.

My experience this year, planting hardy hybrid water lilies, is that they didnt wakeup until the water was more like 65 or higher at the surface. I wouldnt hesitate to plant now if you can, they lilies would just jump to life. If you do wait to plant until next year, I would wait until the water at the surface is closer to 70 degrees for the plants to take off growing.

I love mine

Thats a pretty view there RAH...

08tr - Your two choices will stay small and should meet your goals in 4-6 yrs. You can plant them until early September in Ohio which I have done numerous times. One can get often pricing deals on lilies in mid to late summer. I suggest you first plant them in shallow (6"-8"high) containers such as a cut off 5 gal bucket, an old dishpan or cut off containers from recycling. One root per pot. Use heavy garden soil or pond dirt and not potting soil. Place the planted lily in shallow water 2ft deep until it is producing new leaves. Then it can be moved deeper - 2.5 to 3 ft for over wintering. Then next spring when it is making new leaves and the pot does not have invading species in it transfer the whole root mass out of the pot into the pond bottom where you want them to grow. This process sets up sort of a quarantine to check for invasive 'piggy back' unwanted plants.

I have a few "pet" painted turtles. They love to chew off the base of the leaves. Cage in the plant if you can until you have enough that the little buggers cannot eat them all. Little brats! Too bad I like having turtles around.

That has been my problem...Mine just start to get a few leaves and the turtles have them gone in a day...I could even see the top of the rhizome had been chewed down on one I move the other day...

Going to have to figure out some sort of cages for them until they get established...

Also, can Cutrine Plus be used on or around water lilies?..I got a little on one when I sprayed and it didn't appear to like it that well...

Cutrine won't kill the lilies but could "burn' the leaves based on the concentration of Curtrine.

I see in here that the turtles apparently like eating lilies. Does anyone know if crayfish will nibble at them as well?

I think so

You can plant hardy waterlilies any time of year. Preferably when the water is a comfy temperature to do it, 60's or more

Regards, andy
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