Wednesday 17 July 2013

GIANT WATERLILLY

WATERLILLIES, THEY GET SO BIG!

Picked this morning from my pond
I made a gamble a couple of years ago.

There on the Allotment rubbish heap (which includes junk as well as green stuff) I found a huge, woody root of waterlilly.

Obviously somebody had found it too big for their pond, and chucked it out.

My gamble was to grow it in my small pond for a couple of years, and then do the same thing, chuck it out when it got too big.  I cut a couple of pieces off the large root and tied string round them.  Then I lowered each piece into my two ponds, one small, one minute.

THIS YEAR, RESULT

The flowers are truly beautiful, but the leaves are very large.  This morning I cut off all the biggest leaves, which were hiding the flowers and I picked a bloom to put in a vase.  It is getting a bit droopy already, but is still lovely.


Next year I really might have to get that  root out and chuck it away, meanwhile I love it.

My pond is a real pain though, so much work removing exuberant pond irises and sundry water plants, not to mention the problem of finding small holes in the butyl lining.  I think these leaks are caused by herons, who come into the garden looking for the fish.  I have a few sticklebacks.

I have also seen herons fly off with frogs in their beaks.  Its a hard life if you are a frog.

2 comments:

  1. Beautiful flower. I tried adding waterlilies to my pond, a friend let us take a plant from a lake at the bottom of her garden where there are huge masses of water lilies. "No problem" we thought, these plants are growing wild & will survive in our pond. First day after planting, we noticed a nibble on the leaf, 2nd day - more bites. 3rd day nothing left. Something in our pond enjoys eating water lily plants, maybe the snapping turtle? A bit disappointing really.

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  2. How sad you could not grow the waterlilies. I guess they were the wild ones?
    Maybe there is another floating and flowering plant you can try, that the turtle or whatever, would not eat.
    Have you done any research about what eats waterlilies? On the wonderful Google!

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