#nymphaea pygmaea

[thelostgarden-blog]

My patio ponds are blooming, first one is super tiny "Hevola" and the second one is bigger "Rubra". I had the water lily in a classic basket last year and it didn't bloom. Did year I planted all of them in containers without any drainage and caped them with sand and blooming right away. I also added some fertilizers but I did that last year too. Anyway, the none drainage way is the trick

[thewindowsill]

Just a few hours between. My precious baby “Helvola” in bloom. The flower is just 3,5 cm wide. Super happy and a little tempted to plant it in my tank but... 

[thewindowsill]

(Where do these posts go, houseplant blog or gardening blog?) I overwintered my water lily in a bucket of water, no extra light until February when it was starting to look a little too doom and gloom. Despite being the cheapest light I could find it seems to work and he’s growing. There’s now a little light coming in from the window as well but since he’s on the floor, not a lot of that will reach him. He did lose his buds but seems promising for the summer.

I want to repot it later. It’s in a net pot and I want one without drainage as it’s supposed to help the plant get all the fertilizer you put in the pot and doesn’t leak into the water, and neither does the clay. Not sure where or how to find these pots and I actually bout a plastic tin of cookies for the lotus so maybe I will have to buy more cookies?

The water lettuce were dying off all over the place but these in the water lily bucket are doing better and I added a little fertilizer to the water as well. A few azollas have also survived, I’ve read that they want cooler winters and the ones I placed it a plastic cup in the window seemed to like it so yay!

[thelostgarden-blog]

So after being outside in full sun all summer, I brought the waterlily in before it froze. Unsure what to do with it I just put it in a bucket hoping that it would be okay. I used an app on my phone today and it gets about 25 foot candles which is basically nothing, "Plants referred to as low light intensity plants generally should receive between 50 and 250 foot-candles." Source found here.

I thought the reason why it hadn't flowered during the summer was perhaps that I didn't fertilized it enough but here it is, stuck in a bucket with a small amount of water and no light, and what's that? A freaking bud.

Been awhile since I saw any mosquitoes by the way.

[thewindowsill]

Found someone other than James Wong growing dwarf water lilies in their aquarium. It’s from a French message board btw. It looks very tiny just like James’s, I think that’s salvinia and that doesn’t grow very big as far as I know. 

It’s a “Helvola”

[thelostgarden-blog]

I'm silly and stupid

So it's almost 2 o'clock in the morning and no mosquitoes right now but I did have some yesterday. See what happened is, I brought my water lily in and I have it in a bucket on the floor in my bedroom because I can't winter store it cool. I hope it gets some light from the window and some of the grow lights. Knock on wood, so far so good.

Other than the mosquitoes that is... guess there were a bunch of eggs in the soil so here I am, mosquitoes in the bedroom.

Despite this I caught myself thinking... "Maybe should buy another one next summer?"

Maybe I should get a proper indoor pond, not an aquarium but a pond with some platys.

PS. I would like to have a skimmer for the bucket outside in the summer but the small ones I have found are all for indoors. The outside ones are too big.

[thewindowsill]

Pictures of this tank were basically the reason I wanted to get a tank and I NEEDED a water lily, how cool is that. I did buy a one and I had it outside in a bucket thing over the summer and... I have the same as that lily in the picture and how on earth does it fit in that tiny tank!? Mine is huge with long roots going everywhere! The tank it the picture is “shoebox sized” and water lily wouldn’t fit that thing. Maybe I’ll try to cut a piece of the rhizome in spring and see if I can plant it in something very small. 

Some of the first leaves on my water lily were super cute and tiny but then they grew pretty large, two three leaves would cover the surface of that tank. Is there a trick to keep them small or? 

James Wongs pic btw and the water lily is Nymphaea pygmaea “Helvola”

[thelostgarden-blog]

I'm probably being naïve again

Winter storing your waterlily can be done in a lot of ways, a common one around here is to putting it somewhere that doesn't freeze but is cold, like a garage or something. If it's stored cool it doesn't need light, or so I have read.

I don't have that option though so... yeah, I bought a heavy duty bucket (the ones used to make concreate in) and I will have it indoors, I might have to provide it some light. I think that's the issue, and I will probably have to hardy it off when putting it out again next year (if it lives) as it will be used to warm water.

Well, we'll see how it goes. It's just what... four or five month until I can put it back out.

The funny thing is, I was planning to keep this in an aquarium during the winter. I would have needed a gigantic aquarium because it's big and the roots would cause mayhem.