Planting a tropical water lily

Learn to to plant a tropical water lily with this guide. *This process must be completed without delay and you should work in a shaded location–live plants!

Utopia Aquatic uses small pots to control the size of the plants–quart pots to be exact. You should plant in as large a pot as possible. We recommend at least a 2 gallon pot. We also use pots with holes because the roots will eventually find their way out the bottom and feed on the mulm on the bottom. There is no debate–if you have two identical tropical water lilies and pot one in a sealed container and the other in one with holes–the one with holes will grow more vigorously! In this tutorial, we temporarily seal the holes with index cards, otherwise the sand would spill out. We also use and recommend Osmocote–as it is a granular fertilizer. As for tab fertilizers, we recommend AgSafe Aquatic-Tabs or Pondtabbs Plus.You may use other kinds of aquatic plant fertilizers if these are not accessible.

Steps for planting a tropical water lily

Part 1: Gather the supplies. In this photo we have a pot, a tropical water lily, sand, fertilizer, and index cards.

 

Part 2: Use the index cards to seal the bottom of the pot. If you do not do this, the sand would immediately leak out.

Part 3: Next place some sand in the bottom–about 1/3 of the pot. Firm it down.

Part 4: Add some fertilizer. We use Osmocote as it provides excellent results!

Part 5: Top off the fertilizer will a small amount of sand. Then firm the sand down again.

Part 6: Set the plant in the pot and spread the roots around.

Part 7: Fill the pot nearly full with sand. Do not cover the crown of the tropical water lily. Then once again, press the sand to firm it.

Part 8: Here we have a tropical water lily (N. ‘Charlie’s Pride) ready to be placed in a pond / water garden.

If some items in this tutorial are not available to you then use whatever is available to you. For example, if you have clay and it is not contaminated with pesticides, then use that. If you have tab fertilizers instead of Osmocote, then use that. Finally be sure not to over fertilize–too much would not be good for your tropical water lily–it could even be burned!

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on products such as stickers and postage stamps?
Check out Utopia Aquatic's Zazzle.

Tagged as: growing tropical water lilies, planting tropical water lilies, potting tropical water lilies