Making pond lilies bloom

[Big Lou]

I asked about this a week or so ago and do not know if I understood the answers. My bountiful lily pad plants are in the shade. Will fertilizing them bring about blooms? Zero blooms so far this year. What fertilizer should I use? Hopefully the fertilizer would be easy to put in the three underwater pots.

Thanks

 

[ChrisP]

Fertilizing should bring on blooming especially if you haven't ever fertilized them (it sounds like no). Look for lily fertilizer tabs that can be inserted into the soil. Put them in away from the middle where the plant is to prevent burning.

Does that lily variety do well in shade?


I just planted one I bought from a local nursery and the fourth flower is ready to bloom any day now.

 

[Big Lou]

In the years in our pond there was been several blooms a year.

 

[Lisak1]

Fertilizer will definitely help, but lilies in the shade will bloom less, in my experience. This has been a slow year for our blooms - cool spring seems to have slowed them down a bit.

We use tomato spikes in ours. They are cheap and easy to find and very simple to use. Just poke them doen into the pot. You can buy tablets or spikes made for aquatic plants, but I have a hunch they are the same thing in a more expensive package.

 

[addy1]

Mine were a month behind in blooming. Finally started beginning of june. The shaded ones just a bloom now and then

 

[Tula]

We recently put a shade sail over part of the pond, as we lost two trees this Spring. The lilies in the sunny patch bloom more.....but one in the shade is working up to a bloom

I used Osmacote, when grooming them for the Spring....I just worked it in well, with the kitty litter. I would use tabs or stakes during the summer months, but pond is too deep for me to do regularly.

 

[Gordo33]

First year my pond was shaded by large maple tree and Lilly blooms were sparse. Tree was removed and now the pond is in full sun. Last year blooms exploded. Like Addy1 blooms are behind this year due to the cooler spring this year.
Shaded

Full sun this year . Ferts are same for both scenarios. I wonder if there are water lilies for shaded areas like blooming terrestrial plants for shade.

 

[mgmine]

This may seem like a bad idea but I'll tell you what I did. I put in three artificial lily's and float among the real leaves. I bought them from Drs Foster and Smith when they had free shipping. The leaves that came with them look fake so I just cut them off. So far no one that has seen them has noticed that they aren't real. That includes my wife who told me not to get them because they would look terrible! When the real flowers come out the artificial ones still look good. They are not perfect but they really are pretty good.