water lillies

Hey Guys,

When the bloom on your water lily fades/dies should I try to remove it or do I just let it die?

I go out every day and remove any dead or dying leaves off all my plants and remove anything that may have blown into the pond, but, I have always left the water lily blooms.

With leaves they can reabsorb some of the leaf as they start to deteriorate. The flowers can use up more energy however as effort is put into forming seeds. Ideally you can leave the leaves at least until they turn yellow but it is ok to just pick it all off as you feel like it.

I always remove mine ASAP. I am not an expert on water lilies, but as stated before, many plants put energy into producing seeds, if you remove the flower before it can produce seeds it will put that energy into producing more flowers.

Any dead and decomposing plant material in the pond is a bad thing.

I remove the dead leaves, but have never removed the flowers. They seem to just go away. Maybe I'm not paying enough attention to them.