PLANTS
PERENNIAL DEEP WATER PLANTS
These plants can be left in your pond for the winter if you do not add salt to your pond. If you do add salt, simply take the plant from the pond and plant in your garden for the winter. Once they start to grow in the spring replant them in the pond.
They can be planted as deep as 10 feet below the water line. For these plants to do well they will need a minimum of 6 hours of sunlight.
- Lotus are cousins to waterlilies and have similar leaves and a pretty flower. For the novice water gardener they are challenging to grow. These plants like the water temperature to be around 80 degrees before they begin flowering and will flower until fall. They do not do well if they freeze in winter so keep them below the ice in your pond. If you would like additional information on growing lotus visit our friends at the pond digger.com.
Spatterdock is often confused with water lilies and is also known by Yellow Pond Lily, Cowlily. The spatterdock's leaves are below the surface throughout the spring, light green in color, and look like lettuce growing on the lake bottom. By late late june the broad, dark green, elongated, heart-shaped leaves float on the water's surface or often stand above the water as the summer progresses. The roots look something like palm-tree trunks, with knobby scars where leaves have grown. The small bright yellow, ball-like flowers bloom from June to mid-August and also stand just above the water surface. They are not as showy as a waterlily. The flower emits a strong brandy-like odor which attracts pollinating insects. This plant is hardy to zone 4 so it does well in Utah.
Hardy Water Lilies have leaves are more round than heart-shaped, up to 12 inches in diameter with the slit about 1/3 the length of the leaf. Leaves usually float on the water’s surface. Flowers arise on their own stalks, have brilliant white, yellow, orange or red petals (25 or more per flower) with yellow centers. The flowers may float or stick above the water and each opens in the morning and closes in the late afternoon. The flowers are very fragrant. They also help greatly in controlling algae and give places for small fry to grow.
When water lilies become pot-bound they produce much smaller leaves instead of larger pads and they don't produce as many flowers. After a season of growth you no longer have just one plant in a pot, but many much smaller plants. All these individual plants are competing with each other for the limited amount of nutrients in the soil. To maximize your lilies' growth and flowering potential you may want to divide the plant and have one plant per pot, larger pots could hold more than one plant. As your water lily begins to emerge in the spring you may see several points of growth. Each of these growing points are individual plants.