General advice? Planting / overwintering plants indoor - Sweetflag, Arrowhead, Marsh Marigold, Corkscrew Rush, Water Lillies, Canna

[Duxwig]

First "real" year with the pond and first winter, decided to bring plants indoors due to the frigid temps here. (and Hello to 13.5" of snow yesterday)
Need some advice other than "just keep buying new" plants each year because can't say I have a green thumb or it went well

The pond is too shallow and freezes entirely in Zone 5a. No fish. No breather to keep it unfrozen (and zero desire to go this route).
Sweetflag, Corkscrew Rush, Lillies, and Canna were put in the pond late July/August some time I recall after a reconstruction, young plants.

Planted them all in homemade fabric pots with plain unscented kitty litter. Root growth seemed significant, LOTS of roots. The greenage survived and looked fine, but didn't seem to strive and grow much after putting in the pond. Late season, not enough fert, soil comp,did but not noticeably, etc as "possible" question areas.

In any regard I decided to try to overwinter two different varieties of sweet flag, corkscrew rush, three different kinds of water lillies, and a canna.

I ordered Marsh Marigold and Arrowhead off Etsy in early February and planted the bare roots. Just planted in plain top soil w/ some starter fert. Water level for the marigold was covering 1/2-3/4 of the roots, and crown out of water. Over the month, they did "well," they each had 3-4 leaves form and one flowered already. Arrowhead started off good as bulbs, small leaves on two, and the other big bulb also had a nice leaf. Arrowhead i put in top soil and water was about 1/2 inch above the soil, with the bulb tip exposed. Went seemingly ok for the most part.
As far as watering the others, sweet flag/rush had mainly wet soil with draining containers.
Changed the water that marigold and and arrowhead had sitting there every week or week and half.

Sweet flag / rush / lillies were in the garage most of the year @ ~35-40 degrees, moved sweet flag/rush indoors w/ the grow light around February in a room that was ~70 degs to get some action going. Canna was in fridge and didn't seem rotten or soggy, dried out if anything - wrapped in damp papertowel that i rewett like 3 times through the winter.

Things seemed to be going well until I got greedy and put "enough" starter fert (10-10-10) on everything. The rush is seemingly dead now, marsh marigold got nuked, sweet flag seems to say "give me more MF'er!", and a white mold/fungus started on the base of the arrowhead and now its starting to go.
Just recently made a sand/soil/litter mix and put the lillies in the storage container of water and the 5 gallon bucket. Doesnt seem like any action over the past 2 weeks and and upper left one looks like a white mold growing under water on it probably? Canna has done nothing. Soil very moist, but nothing pooling on bottom.

I took the rush, marigold, and sweet flag out, washed the roots and replanted in different non-ferted soil to try and save them but I think they were nuked. I didn't swap soil on arrowhead yet, was planning today but also feeling 'aw whats the use' syndrome.

I ordered 3 more marsh marigold and 3 arrowhead on Etsy the other day to replace them and know better but still need some advice to improve my outcomes and stupid ideas like over-ferting.

Send your better expertise way for improvement!

 

[Duxwig]

More pics in more natural light.

 

[j.w]

Wow you did murder some!i Think Sweet Flag is very hardy. Mine stays out in my garden bed all winter and we get minus temps at times. None of your plants even when indoors need any fertilizer in Winter. They like a rest period. When I had Sweet Flag in my pond I just left it in there all year long too and never fertilized. It grew so big I had to remove it as got tired of dealing w/it. So heavy to lift as pot it was broke too. Canna you would prolly need to keep bringing indoors in winter but don't fertilize it. Just let it do it's thing. Think you can actually wrap the big bulbs in newspaper and keep in the garage but not sure about that. Water lilies people just usually cut the dead pads off and sink down to the bottom of the ponds for winter. No fert for them either till Spring. The Rush should be fine left out in the pond too maybe. Those temps you posted are they minus temps or just dashes you used up there? I'm thinking they were dashes as you would not be minus 35 to 40 in there and the 70 was a warm temp and not a minus. If this is the case all your plants except the Canna should be fine out there. Marsh Marigold likes the cold and needs it. I can't grow it here in my pond as winters aren't cold enough.
Don't fertilize anything in Fall or Winter and don't over use the stuff when you do add it. Only a spoonful or so or one spike at a time or a tablet. Give them some each month. Water lilies maybe more. If you have fish you prolly don't even need to fertilize any but the Waterlilies and the Canna. Not sure about Marsh Marigold as never had any.

 

[Duxwig]

Wow you did murder some!i Think Sweet Flag is very hardy. Mine stays out in my garden bed all winter and we get minus temps at times. None of your plants even when indoors need any fertilizer in Winter. They like a rest period. When I had Sweet Flag in my pond I just left it in there all year long too and never fertilized. It grew so big I had to remove it as got tired of dealing w/it. So heavy to lift as pot it was broke too. Canna you would prolly need to keep bringing indoors in winter but don't fertilize it. Just let it do it's thing. Think you can actually wrap the big bulbs in newspaper and keep in the garage but not sure about that. Water lilies people just usually cut the dead pads off and sink down to the bottom of the ponds for winter. No fert for them either till Spring. The Rush should be fine left out in the pond too maybe. Those temps you posted are they minus temps or just dashes you used up there? I'm thinking they were dashes as you would not be minus 35 to 40 in there and the 70 was a warm temp and not a minus. If this is the case all your plants except the Canna should be fine out there. Marsh Marigold likes the cold and needs it. I can't grow it here in my pond as winters aren't cold enough.
Don't fertilize anything in Fall or Winter and don't over use the stuff when you do add it. Only a spoonful or so or one spike at a time or a tablet. Give them some each month. Water lilies maybe more. If you have fish you prolly don't even need to fertilize any but the Waterlilies and the Canna. Not sure about Marsh Marigold as never had any.

The temps listed were monitored temps in our heated garage. Occasionally need to heat the garage so it doesnt go < 32F.
Outside temps here in winter routinely get -10F; -20F to -30F with windchills. Pond freezes to the bottom.

changed the arrowheads soil/water to see how they'll do, changed the lily pad water - not sure if i just need to change the water more frequently on them to prevent the underwater mold or if the tuber stuff is just dead and decaying.

 

[GBBUDD]

TROPICAL LILLIES, AND CANNA ARE THE ONLY PLANTS YOU LISTED THAT WILL NOT OVER WINTER IN ZONE 5. everything ELSE CAN FREEZE UP LIKE A BLOCK OF ICE AND IT WILL BE FINE. Your probably doing more harm pulling them out and having to replant over and over . pickeril rush/weed is one of those plants that does not like being moved around. and they do just fine becoming a block of ice

 

[addy1]

My marsh marigold is in a very shallow pond that becomes a block of ice, it is sending up a ton of flowers right now. Will take a picture when they open, ie sun is out. Everything else will do fine in the winter except like said above tropical lilies and canna. I take my bog canna and stick a few tubers in a bucket in the basement. Keep some water in the bucket, ignore all winter until I can stick them back into the bog.

 

[Lisak1]

I cam to say the same thing. Hardy pond plants can freeze solid. They don't care. Most are planted in the margins of a pond where the ice is completely encompassing. That 13 inches of snow would have been their jam.

I tried the same experiment my first year of ponding with my patio pond plants. Brought everything indoors and babied it allllllll winter long. Everything looked GREAT until about end of January... by mid-February we were clearly in trouble. My the time I could get everything outdoors, things were alive, but definitely not thriving. My goal had been to get a head start on the spring season with big hardy plants in early April... instead I had tiny, wispy, sickly looking sticks in pots. They all survived, but it took all summer before they even looked good, let alone great.

The lesson is some plants are meant to go through the freezing cold temps, get buried in snow, lay dormant all winter long and come back to live when nature tells them "NOW!" If you leave your plants in pots (which I don't recommend) you can just drop the pots to the bottom of the pond and pull them back up when spring returns.

 

[GBBUDD]

just drop the pots to the bottom of the pond and pull them back up when spring returns.

I do that with my water Lillie's even my tropicals. I drop them down to about 3.5 feet where they are sure not to freeze some have made it some have not

 

[addy1]

My lilies sit about 2 feet deep, but we have not had a hard freeze in years.

 

[j.w]

I have hardy water lilies in my frog pond that are hardly a foot deep and they are surviving fine but then we don't get a lot of minus temps that would freeze that pond solid. Maybe just a bit of ice on top and that's it.

 

[poconojoe]

I'm in zone 6b, Pennsylvania.
My Marsh Marigold freezes solid both in my pond and in my bog. Plus it has not only grown bigger each year, but it has spread to other areas completely on it's own.
I do trim them in the fall. I cut all the stems off, leaving nothing but stubs.

 

[Duxwig]

Thanks for info, I’ll try to leave them in pond this year and see how it goes.

New marsh marigold going good in just soil. Pretty sure the lilies are toast, not doing anything and that white film forming under the water. Trimmed the dead off corkscrew rush but pretty sure it’s dead. (

 

[Duxwig]

Plan to use homemade fabric bags again to customize sizes for the pond but what type of planting medium does everyone suggest?
Last year I just did straight kitty litter w a fert tab.
Seemed to work ok but thought there may be better mixes?

 

[addy1]

I use just kitty litter, all plants except the lilies, get nothing extra, ie fertilizer.

Feel the tubers if they are still firm, they may be ok. Look for tiny growth spots.

 

[Lisak1]

I say this so often I can't remember if I actually said it on this post but - ditch the pots! Whenever possible, plant as much as you can (lilies excluded) directly in the pond and let them do their thing! They filter better, grow better and require far less work if you just naturalize them in the pond.