Fertilizing Your Water Lilies...

Unfortunately, sunlight is not enough.

Your water lilies will grow, thrive, and bloom much better if youget in the habit of fertilizing them regularly.

The good news is -- It's Easy!

you can either remove your water lily from the pond to fertilizethem, your sometimes you can even do it with the plants still inthe pond...

I prefer to remove them so I can inspect to see if they arebecoming overgrown, and possibly need dividing. This is reallythe best way, and a good time to kill two birds with one stone.

So, first - remove the pot from the pond. Then drain out anyexcess water, so you can see the surface of the soil andRhiozome..

Next, here's a trick I use to fertilize my lilies quickly andeasily...

Have a fairly wide tipped flathead screwdriver nearby, and thenuse it to punch a clear path into the soil and through theexisting roots. Then give it a good twisting to hollow our yourhole.

You'd be surprised how hard it can be to push a fertilizer tabdown into a dense root pack - so try this next time and tell meif it isn't 100% easier.

Now that you have your 'holes' dug - take 3-4 water lilyfertilizer tabs out (we like the Tetra Pond fertilizer tabs), andpush them down into the holes with your index finger..

That's it -- you're done!

Then just cover up the holes and top off the plant with somefresh dirt, as we discussed in our last article - and you'reready to move onto the next one.

Once you've fertilized all your lilies, just slowly lower themback into the pond..

Here's another trick I use - Don't just drop the pot back intothe pond, as trapped air bubbles can sometimes uproot the lily orsome soil..

This is espcecially true new pottings, as the soil has not beenproperly 'set'. Here's what I do:

Lower the pot into the water, just enough to fill it with water,then raise back up out of the water until you see all the airbubbles disappear.

Do this a few more times, until you think you're removed all theair bubbles from the pot - then slowly lower it down into thepond.

There's nothing more frustrating than having a newly potted lily(or any plant) suddenly lift up out of the pot, dumping dirt allover the pond, and having to be repotted.. I'ts happened to memore than once..

So that's it for now, in our next article, we'll talk abouttrimming and pruning water lilies...

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Brett Fogle is the owner of MacArthur Water Gardens and several
other pond-related websites includingMacArthurWatergardens.com
and Pond-Filters-Online.com. He also publishes a free monthly
newsletter called PondStuff! with a reader circulation of over
9,000. To sign up for the free newsletter and receive our FREE
'New Pond Owners Guide' visit MacArthur Water Gardens today!
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