Tropical Water Lilies

Tropical lilies are fast growers, and most are scented. The diameter of the leaves can vary from three to 16 inches. Tropicals are great in containers and are even frost tender in Zone 10 and above.

You can purchase tropical water lilies at your local garden center or specialty garden supplier, or you can buy them through mail order or the internet. Lilies come in either containers or as bare-root plants. Just remember, as with all bare-root purchases, keep the roots moist at all times.

Tropical water lilies need daytime air temperatures of about 70 degrees, and water temperatures that are 70 degrees and above. Putting out tropicals too early may cause them to go into dormancy.

Here, we pot a bare-root lily into an eight-inch container with holes. The holes are important so that the roots can breathe.

Materials:
bare-root tropical water lily
eight-inch plastic pot (with holes in the bottom)
large container (like a whiskey barrel)
heavy clay soil
fertilizer tablet
gravel
small pump (optional)
fish (optional)
other aquatic plants (optional)

Step 1: Fill the large container
Place the large container in an area that gets at least five to six hours of direct sun. Fill the container (the one in which you'll sink the lily) with water. Let the water sit overnight, or even better for 24 hours, so that the chlorine will evaporate off.

Step 2: Pot the lily
Use a heavy, clay-like garden soil for potting water lilies. Use a good soil mix: four parts top soil (straight from the garden) and one part organic compost and well-aged cow manure. Do not use potting soil.

Once the container is about a quarter full, add a fertilizer tablet and then a little more soil. Carefully place the bare-root lily in the pot and gently spread out the roots. Finish filling in with soil, making sure you don't cover the crown--otherwise it will rot. Then add a layer of gravel to keep the soil in place.

Step 4: Add the fish and pump
In the first few days, expect the container to get rather slimy. If you want to put fish in the container, wait one to two weeks until the system settles down. There will be algae blooms and changes in the water quality, both of which make a more fish-friendly environment.

Adding a small pump is a good idea to oxygenate the water and help to alleviate some of the problems with algae. It is also beneficial to fish. Keep in mind, though, that the leaves of lilies are very fragile and prefer not to be bombarded with water (little bubbles are fine). To prevent mosquitoes, add dunks and fertilize once a month.

Whether you grow tropical lilies in containers or ponds, keep in mind that they won't survive once temperatures start to cool down in the fall. Some can be successfully over-wintered indoors, but only under the right conditions. On average you may be able to successfully winter only half your collection. Allow the plant to go into dormancy. The leaves will become smaller and eventually disappear. Remove the tuber from the soil and place it in sand in a cool dry location. Otherwise you can treat them like annuals--pull them out at the end of the growing season and toss them in the compost heap.

Unlike hardy lilies, tropical lilies need to completely dry out when in dormancy. These plants come from environments where they experience extreme wet and dry seasons.