Learn How to Grow Water Lilies at Home in Tubs and Pots and create a beautiful water garden without a pond.
If you don’t have enough space to create a water garden, container gardening is also a great option. You can grow water lilies at home in tubs and pots.
How to Grow Water Lilies at Home
No worries if you don’t have a pond but still want to grow water lilies; they can be planted in large tubs or pots on your patio. They can be grown from tubers planted in containers under the water and boast stems with round leaves and star-shaped blooms that drift on the surface. Water lilies flower in a range of hues, including white, yellow, pink, and red.
Hardy lilies are easy to grow and a good choice for beginners. They flower in the morning and close after sunset, generally lasting three to four days before returning to the surface. The blooms arise from spring to fall and are dormant in winter. You can leave them in water or take them out and keep them in a garage or shed.
Also, tropical water lilies look more beautiful and require more care. The blooms are big and more profuse. They need water temperature above 70 F and the tubers have to be moved out of the water during winter.
Varieties for Containers
If you don’t have a pond, you can plant water lilies in tubs or pots; check the best miniature water lily varieties.
- Nymphaea ‘Ellisiana’
- ‘Aurora’
- ‘Paul Hariot’
- ‘Laydekeri Lilacea’
- Nymphaea pygmaea ‘Helvola’
- ‘Ellisiana’
- ‘Denver’
- ‘Margaret Mary’
- ‘Josephine’
- Nymphaea ‘Yellow Thammanoon’
How to Plant Hardy Water Lilies
1. Choose a Pot
Use a shallow and wide tub or pot that is 18 inches wide and at least 10 inches deep; you can take the container with or without drainage holes. Line the pot with burlap for keeping the soil in the tub, soil that leaches can blur the water in the pond.
2. A Suitable Location
Place the container in an area where it gets 6 hours of direct sunlight a day. Keep the pot away from trees that drop leaves in the fall.
3. Fill The Tub with Soil
Use heavy soil that is not fluffy that hovers out of the container. Do not use a soil mix with peat, vermiculite, or perlite. Refine the soil with aquatic fertilizer pellets and insert them into the soil before planting.
4. Tidy Up the Plant
Remove old foliage and fleshy, thick roots before planting water lilies, leaving developing leaves, buds, and hairlike roots.
5. Plant Tubers
Fill the pot about 3/4 full, propagate the tuber against the side of the container, and let the growing tip point upwards (up to 45 degrees) and near the center of the pot.
6. Sum Up Gravel
Add a layer of small pebbles over the surface of the soil; it will keep the potting mix in place.
7. Place in Water
Now submerge the pot in a pond or tub at an angle to enable air to run away. Let the base of the container set 12-18 inches deep and the foliage float on the surface.
8. Winterize Hardy Water Lilies
Discard all dead leaves; if the pond is freezing or you have drained it for winter, then remove the pot and lily, and store the whole container by keeping it moist and cool in a plastic bag. If you are unable to store the entire pot, just take off and clean the growing tuber and keep it in sawdust or peat moss at 40-50 F.
If the pond is not frozen solid, do not remove the pot; lower it to the deepest part of the pond, where water does not freeze. During spring, take the pot back to the appropriate growing level in the container. If the tuber is excavated and stored, repot it.
