Help with water lily pond?

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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:
  • 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.
P.S. The cinderblock is there because we tried to weigh it enough that it drowns the grasses, but it failed; not heavy enough.
 

addy1

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Welcome to our group!
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If was my pond I would pull all the muck, junk, matted up matter out. While you are doing this find any nice lily tubers, 4 inches or so with a nice growing tip, (leaves, buds etc) nice root mass, toss into some water to keep until you clean out the pond.

After you clean it out, you could a) put the tubers in a pt with kitty litter, clay etc, b) put the lilies bare root in the container. Mine do better with kitty litter.

You can tell the good ones by the size of the tuber, non squishy, nice growing tip Actually .any tuber with a growing tip will grow, the bigger ones will grow faster
 
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Welcome to our group!
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If was my pond I would pull all the muck, junk, matted up matter out. While you are doing this find any nice lily tubers, 4 inches or so with a nice growing tip, (leaves, buds etc) nice root mass, toss into some water to keep until you clean out the pond.

After you clean it out, you could a) put the tubers in a pt with kitty litter, clay etc, b) put the lilies bare root in the container. Mine do better with kitty litter.

You can tell the good ones by the size of the tuber, non squishy, nice growing tip Actually .any tuber with a growing tip will grow, the bigger ones will grow faster
Thank you, it might be a hassle to manage to pull out all of the matter, but maybe I can work from the looser close side towards the thicker far side.

Why kitty litter and not soil? Is it better than soil?
 

addy1

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Why kitty litter and not soil? Is it better than soil?

I live in Maryland, our soil is silt and clay, if I put that in the pond it will murk up my water forever. Kitty litter does not cloud the water. And I have goldfish in the pond that like to mess around in the lilies. Kitty litter is just pure clay. (The cheap kitty litter)
 
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Thank you, it might be a hassle to manage to pull out all of the matter, but maybe I can work from the looser close side towards the thicker far side.

Why kitty litter and not soil? Is it better than soil?

Welcome to GPC. Hassle yes. Absolutely necessary yes. Pulling out all of the matter is a must. You and your class will be very happy with the results. Just follow Addy's instructions. :D
 
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How would you guys suppose we clean it out? Any tools? Or just with our hands? As I said, it's very thick and bonded together. You might as well call the far side mud+roots, and I want to be careful with the roots of the tubers. Clawing away at the middle parts has helped a little, as the roots are less entangled, but it still persists.
 
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I bet when you take it all out there will be lily tubers you can cut (if need be) out of all the other growth. They may look rough and loose their growth but once you clear out the pond and put new water and just your lilies they will put up new growth, it's their job!!!
It will look 300% better when it's clear water and you can see the lily pads floating on water and not plant matter.
 
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Just start mucking! Lilies are actually very hardy - you can hack and chop and still end up with viable tubers. And it doesn't take much to get a full grown plant in a matter of weeks. Like addy said, a 4 inch piece in a pot will grow incredibly fast. You'll be amazed!
 
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So it doesn't matter if some of the roots on a living tuber are torn off or damaged? Is the rhizome really that hardy that they wouldn't die to losing some roots? If so, I'll try it out. Thanks!

Also, I heard that the rhizomes can be chopped up and grown separately. Think I should try that out?

@Lisak1 Our avatars match! :)
 

addy1

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When I groom my lilies I pull them out of their pots, yank or cut them apart, never worry about saving all of the roots, By the end of the summer they are huge again. They are tough plants
 

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Welcome! I agree with what they all have said about the need to remove all the muck. I struggled with the same thing when I inherited my pond. For 3 years I tried just pulling the weeds since mucking out the pond was going to be a huge job but every year the reeds and weeds came back stronger than before. It wasn't until I pulled the muck that I realized that most of the weeds had formed an almost carpet layer of roots UNDER all the muck. So while it's going to be a big job, getting it all out and starting fresh will be much less work for maintenance further down the road.
Good luck!
 

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