Need ideas for keeping my water lilies in their pots!

[baeya]

I'm not sure if it is my koi or my 6" red slider turtle, but something is chopping my lily pads off at the base and now I found the root or whatever it's called floating in my pond. Any ideas as to how I can get these to grow without being disturbed???

 

[Waterbug]

Wrap the pot in chicken wire or plastic bird netting. The shoots can come thru but nothing can get into the root ball. Hopefully the cut stems were damaged while someone was getting at the roots. Didn't sound like the stems were eaten. Chicken wire would need to be replaced each year but that shouldn't be a problem during normal maintenance.

If the stems were still eaten you could try a different variety of lily that Koi and turtles don't like.

Or separate the lily from whoever is doing the eating. Good excuse for a new pond too.

 

[koiguy1969]

it is likely your koi...mine do it as well..you'll probably notice the last couple inches of the stems are empty. they pull them off and suck out the meat (pulp) from them.

 

[CliffandJoann]

We tried loading up the lily pots with rocks, but that doesn't work...they just pick up the rocks
with their mouths and spit them out, and dig in the pots until the entire lily plant is floating
around Big koi and lilies don't mix well. Lilies are candy to koi.

But, man is actually smarter than beast! Here is one solution that we tried...
get a wire pot, take out the moss and invert the pot over the lily pot.
attach the pot with some wire or they'll just lift and carry the pot off! (insert Jaws
music here) The lily grows through the wire and the bad boys can't dig in the pots.

We're suppose to have a bare bottom pond...but as I said above, the koi spit the rocks out of the pots.

here is a lily pot just covered with the inverted wire pot, before we removed the rocks on the pond bottom.
the lilies suffer terribly

in a koi pond...but we keep trying.

 

[baeya]

Great idea! Thank you! I will give that a try....but I also think the turtle is chewing through the long stems as well......bad little guy......

 

[koiguy1969]

i might try planting in lava rock next year... i have read that the rough texture is supposed to keep them fron rooting around in the pots.and they cant get suction on them to pull tem out of the pots....i plant in river rock and peagravel now. maybe just a later of lava rock on top.

 

[mikeinpgh]

i might try planting in lava rock next year... i have read that the rough texture is supposed to keep them fron rooting around in the pots.and they cant get suction on them to pull tem out of the pots....i plant in river rock and peagravel now. maybe just a later of lava rock on top.

I agree 100%......I have some plants from last year that I planted in lava rock. I never had a problem. This year I bought some new plants and planted them in kitty litter with pea gravel on top. The plants in the kitty litter and pea gravel didn't last a week. The plants were dug up and floating. A lot of the gravel was on the bottom of the pond. :banghead3:
Next year it's back to all lava rock.

 

[taherrmann4]

Two of my largest lilies are not in pots they are held down with a rock tied around them to hold them to the bottom of the pond. They have been this way for about two maybe three years can't remember.

 

[koiguy1969]

i know DR.Case does about the same, i believe he sets a few large rocks keeping it down and semi enclosing them. **my iris' are in a milk crate...large rock in bottom and stakes run thru the holes in the crate thru the root ball.

 

[HARO]

Two of my largest lilies are not in pots they are held down with a rock tied around them to hold them to the bottom of the pond. They have been this way for about two maybe three years can't remember.

And as a bonus, they never outgrow their pot! :cheerful: John

 

[ashirley]

I use the cheap pop up laundry hampers. Put the pot in the bottom and pull the hamper up around it. So far so good.

 

[baeya]

great ideas! Thanks everyone! We've been working on a new bog today....the hardest part was getting the huge spirea out! Pooped us both out so we went to dinner and had a few (too many) drinks!!