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At school we have a Greenhouse club, which has a pond outside. I'd say the container box is about 1.5 x 2.5 meter and 0.75 meter deep (rough guess). These are pictures of the pond and the type of the lily pad.
http://imgur.com/a/yYSRE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymphaea_alba
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymphaea_alba
The problem is that there's reeds, grasses, and other things in there that shouldn't be growing. It's been around long enough that the decayed matter has turned into a thick mattress of dead stuff/roots. The mattress is much more solid and soil/marsh like on the far side (last picture). The reeds and grasses grow on the solid stuff and compete with the lilies, which don't fare so well in the marshy matter. The closest side with the most lilies is more or less pure water.
I want to find out a way to make the lilies grow and bloom well by taking over the pond. I can try to pull the reeds and grasses, but they'll regrow unless I take the roots out. The roots of everything: rhizome, reeds, grasses, are all entangled in the decayed matter. I could try to pull out the matter, but then I risk damaging the rhizome roots.
So my questions now:
http://imgur.com/a/yYSRE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymphaea_alba
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymphaea_alba
The problem is that there's reeds, grasses, and other things in there that shouldn't be growing. It's been around long enough that the decayed matter has turned into a thick mattress of dead stuff/roots. The mattress is much more solid and soil/marsh like on the far side (last picture). The reeds and grasses grow on the solid stuff and compete with the lilies, which don't fare so well in the marshy matter. The closest side with the most lilies is more or less pure water.
I want to find out a way to make the lilies grow and bloom well by taking over the pond. I can try to pull the reeds and grasses, but they'll regrow unless I take the roots out. The roots of everything: rhizome, reeds, grasses, are all entangled in the decayed matter. I could try to pull out the matter, but then I risk damaging the rhizome roots.
So my questions now:
- Does the lily actually need that matter-mattress to live? If not, then should it be removed?
- How to get the lilies to prosper while removing reed/grasses?
- To replant new rhizomes with the underwater soil pot (gravel top) method, how do I know which rhizomes are right? I know squishy rhizomes are dead.