WATER LILIES

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 271, 12 August 1938, Page 20

WATER LILIES

How To Grow Them Water lilies are generally regarded as the loveliest of all plants for beautifying a pool. Their wax-like blooms floating on the surface of the water give a delightful touch. They are not difficult to grow providing you take one or two special precautions. . Many water lilies are killed in new pools through the simplest of mistakes. For instance, when you fill a poo! for the first time a little sediment leaves the concrete making the water quite cloudy. In a day or two it clears and you think all is well. Actually the. water hasn’t cleared. Part of the sediment remains in invisible suspension, making it impossible for water lilies to grow. You should, therefore, always empty the pool two or three days after filling it for the first time, and fill up again, when the concrete will yield nothing to the water of a harmful nature. Manure or leaf-mould mixed with the planting compost causes the crowns to rot, besides fouling the water. So avoid these two ingredients. Concentrate on a mixture of fibrous loam four parts and sand one part, with 2oz. of bonemeal to the pailful. In that compost the roots are quite happy. Deep planting is another cause . of failure. You see. water lilies are just as dependent on oxygen as are land plants. The deeper they are submerged the cooler the water, and the greater the difficulty of extracting oxygen from it.

A safe rule with any but the monster lilies —which only those having lakes can grow—ls to lower the receptacle 12in. beneath the water level, and attach it by means of copper wire to a stake driven in at the pool side