Hello. I'm here in Worcester, MA where the weather this spring and summer so far has been absolutely pityful. I've got two pots of lilies that looked similar to yours, but with more leaves, that are just now starting to "do their thing". The leaves on the ones I have have never gotten any bigger in diameter than 5 to 6 inches. I don't know how your weather has been but they should really start to "take off" when it gets hotter. Yes, they should be fuller. All I can say is be patient, or if you want really showy lilies get the tropical plants and you can winter them over in your basement. That's what I did. I'm sure others will have something more to add than I. Good Luck.

I have had my pond for 10 years now and the water lilies for about the same. I am no expert but I think your lilies are too shallow. Mine are atleast 1ft below the surface from the top of the pot. I am now having the opposite problem. Mine have taken over and I have to cut the leaves so the fish have more room. Again, Im not an expert but I would try to get them into deeper water. I think it forces them to put out more pads and grow stronger. I have not fertilized so I can't recommend on that one way or another. I never tried the bags, but I may next year when I gut the whole thing to make it bigger. I have a feeling there will only be pieces of the pots left. Right now my pond is a free form liner about 6'x5' and 2 1/2-3 1/2' deep. As far as the zone goes I am in Pittsburgh which is comparable. Our pond freezes every year and somehow the fish and the lilies always make it. I haven't had any luck with any other aquatic plants lasting though.
Good luck and don't give up. I get so much joy from mine, and all of the neighbors love showing the fish to their kids/grandkids. I have even had people ask if the blooms are plastic they are so perfect. Too bad they only last a day or 2. Once your plants are a bit more mature though you will have new buds every day.

Thanks for the responses. So far my biggest leaf in the 2 summers is about 3 1/2 inches, so that is not so terrific.

As for moving the pots deeper, the only other choice is to the bottom of the pond which is about 2 1/2 feet deep. It was SUPPOSED to be 4 feet, and WAS when the guy dug it out for us, but my husband added so much sand below the liner so it wouldn't tear, that he built it up too high. We've had lots of fights about that, but there's nothing I can do about it now.

I was amazed that 3 baby koi made it through the winter, as the pond did freeze without a heater or air hole anywhere!!! The 2 water lilies also came back, as did the rush plant. I have several more plants in pots on the shelves that will have to come inside for winter, and won't have room for the water lilies as well. We only have a finished basement, and 6 cats that have free roam of the house who LOVE to eat plants!

I am hoping that once the warmer weather stays the leaves will get bigger and better? Anyone else have any other suggestions?

Are your koi eating them?
I agree, they are too shallow. I used to keep mine about 6" under the water's surface and someone told me I would get more blooms by going deeper. I went to about 24" and she was right! I think yours would be fine at 2 and 1/2'.
Also, I'm discovering that the tomato spikes don't seem to work as well for me as the pond tabs. I would also give your's more fertilizer. I might give them 2-3 tabs every 3 weeks. And try not to put the tabs near the tuber/roots
Just make sure they are somehow protected from your koi.
It could also be that only a small portion of the tuber made it through the winter on your shelf.
Don't give up!
Oh...and meant to ask......how big is your pot and what kind is it?

The pot is an 8 inch square with the mesh sides - made for pond plants. As for koi... right now I THINK we have 2 koi in the pond. We haven't seen them since my husband put way too much Algae Fix in the pond and they came up gasping for air. One of them died 2 days later and we haven't seen the other 2 since then. We did see them go down towards the bottom, but since we have pea soup we can't see them anymore.

My husband ordered a UV light the other day and it should get here on Thursday. I couldn't wait, and bought 16 baby comets the other day. So far, so good - none have come up dead yet. It's a 3000 gallon pond.

I was looking at the pond and trying to see the best place to submerge the pots - I think I'll have to wait until the UV light does the trick so I can see the bottom better.

I agree with what's been said and I'll add a few comments... and I don't like Walmart for lots of reasons but okay, I won't go down that road... round pots make better water lilly containers since the roots redirect around the perimeter of the pot. An eight inch pot is okay for starting out but you said that you had good root growth, you might want to try a large pot :) in anticipation of what's to come.

Story: I have an 18 inch round pot, only about 6 inches deep, and the medium to large lilly in it was doing fine but I have this area in my pond that is shallow, bout 12 to 14 inches of water, and I wanted to have something right there. I moved the large lilly UP and a week later my pad growth went from ten inch diameters to 'bout 1-1/2 inch diameters... just a lot of little small pads being produced and it has stopped producing buds/flowers now.

There is about 2000 gallons in my lilly pond. I also fertilize with Highland Rim tabs. Our heat has been intense the last few weeks and the other lilies are going like gangbusters, ten plants in nine pots, fourteen flowers and eight more buds as of today... but that one in the shallows, nothing!

Going deep is not a problem I have many at 2-1/4 feet above the container and they're the best producers. Time to get into your pond :)

Hope that helps. Good luck!

Just how shallow are they?

Those baskets are kind of deep, if I'm not mistaken.

I have all of mine in large shallow bowls like oil pans & they have anywhere from 10-12 inches (probably less) of water above the top of pot.
They're all walmart lilies that I've had about 3 years.
I divided & repotted this year. They were a little slow to get started, I believe due to dividing & repotting becaus I did wait till kind of late to do it but they're doing pretty good now.
I also used jobe's tomato spikes this year ... first time.
The lilies are doing good now. The pads start out smallish but do get 4-6 inches ... one has 7 in pads (prob small to y'all but I'm happy with them) & flowering well. I have one that has 4 flowers right now ... the most I've ever had at one time. With lots more buds coming up ... on all of them.

I'm sure they'll prob do better if I lowered them to the bottom of the pond ... have much bigger pads ... but I'm happy with them & I really don't want/like them on the very bottom.

This spring was cooler than usual ... for us anyway ... so maybe being patient.
I think they'll do fine on the bottom of your pond if you decide to move them there.

I've also heard it could take a couple of years for walmart lilies ... IDK.

I agree about the cooler spring. All of my water plants were slow to rev up.

I havent' read all of the other replies, but depending on what kind of lily it is, do you have it planted the way it likes? As in, on a 45 degree angle, ot straight up? I also think it's too shallow. I started mine, which I got at HD this year,( I took it out of the mesh bag too) about 6" under water, then when it started to take off, I lowered it to 18", and it's massive now 7 3/4" pads now. It's a white odorata. No blooms yet, but that may not happen anyway, since it's only getting 4-5 hours of full sun. Plus I didn't even get this in the water until the first week in May. If it's an odorata, they like to be planted on a 45 degree angle. Mine did nothing until I changed it, and planted it right. I can't tell in your pic how it's planted. I am by no means a lily expert, but just relating what happened with my 'budget' lily. and I am quite satisfied with it. It's begun to start sending up smaller pads from the other end now, so I will have to repot it soon, and divide it. Not sure what I will do with the other end, as my pond is only 3'X7', and obviously can not handle another lily, LOL. This one has already started to take over. I only fertilize it once a month, because I want it, and the other plants, to suck up all of the nutrients in the pond, to stave off algae. So far it's worked.

But, I think if you could clean it up a bit,(roots/yellow leaves, etc.) get it deeper in the pond, and use smaller gravel on the top of it, then it might take of for you. I think the gravel is a bit big. It should be pea gravel, if anything. (hard to tell size in the pic too)
Here's a great site for dealing with water lilies. I took their advice about the planting.

http://www.watergarden.org/Aquatic-Plant-Care

Here's a photo;

{{gwi:205388}}
This was from last week, many more pads now...

Here is a link that might be useful: Watergarden.org

Thanks for the reponses everyone! The general consensus it to put the pot deeper in the pond - as I mentioned before, I will do that once the water is hopefully cleared up a bit after my husband installs the UV lights.

Lynne (what a great name!) - thanks for your pictures and the links - those pads are terrific!!! I did plant it in the pot as I had read to - 45 degree angle, on top of a mound of soil with roots spread over it. The roots are doing well, so I guess the depth in the pond is what matters now. I do have small rocks in there instead of gravel. I didn't want any fish that might survive the pond this year to throw the gravel all over the bottom of the pond. I didn't think the slightly larger rocks would be a problem since the area where the leaves grow out from is exposed?

By the way... I have all the same plants that you show in your first picture - guess we have more in common than the name, huh?

Missa - the water pots are about 4 inches deep - not all that deep. What I hadn't read in the pond store catalogue that I had, before potting them, was to line them with newspaper or burlap so the roots stay in the pots.

pondbucket - I had them in larger pots to start out with last summer and they did not grow at all! That is when I took them out and just put them in mesh bags as I had read one could do. When that didn't work either, I bought the pond pots. They are doing pretty well in them except for leaf size, so I think for now the solution is to place them deeper in the pond?

LOL, Lynne, I guess so. I just posted pix of the whole pond/area, on the american ponders board if you want to go look at it. It's a small pond. It's in the photo album. just look for the name 'Lynne22' there too. :-0)

I bought 3 different Walmart water lilies last year and potted them in heavy clay in dish pans. Left them in pond over winter. They started off with small leaves this year, but the pads doubled in size once the water warmed up. They have been blooming non-stop. My pots sit about 30 inches deep. I did use tomato spikes to fertilize which I believe helped greatly since the plants looked a little fatigued by the end of last summer.

Thanks for the heads up on the other forums - I spent waaaaaaaay too much time reading and looking at pictures there last night! LOL

Riverspots - thanks for the info - I am anxious to put them deeper in the pond now. I can't believe that yours are in bloom already - I'm hoping that once I lower my pots they will perk up and perform! Although you are in a zone warmer than here, so I might have to wait a bit?

Also - are you going to add more spikes throughout the summer? That sounds like such a pain to me. I am not the one who goes into the pond - my husband does, and I'm sure he will not want to do that! I think I'll add a few more before he lowers the pots for me this coming weekend.

lynneny.........I mentioned this somewhere in another post. For people who can't easily reach their pots to put the fertilizer tabs in by hand, you can make this simple little tool. Get a 1" diameter piece of pvc pipe. Make it the length you need. Mine is something like 4' long. then get a straight branch or a thin bamboo stake that will fit inside, and make it just a little longer than the pvc pipe.
Take the pvc pipe and put it in the pot where you want the pond tab to go, insert the tab, then insert the bamboo stake into the pvc pipe and push it down into the dirt. Its a simple and easy way to fertilize those hard-to-reach water plants!

It's your WalMart purchase. Whomever supplies them has taken a very small chunk off a maure plant with robably only one eye.

Will take a few years to mature. Just like cheaper bulbs from anywhere. You always have to pay for size and quality.

That said; these lilies look healthy and will eventually reach a decent size. May take years.

Catherinet - that is BRILLIANT!
Thanks for explaining it to me!

In the original picture, it looks like you may not have planted in soil.
From what I understand, they need to be in good garden soil (the heavy kind like that turns to heavy mud). I have bought all of mine at WalMart and I have found that the depth makes little difference unless you put them way down when just little plants so the leaves cannot get to the surface. As long as the plant is in water, it will grow. Secondly (after using good old-fashioned garden soil to pot in--the bigger the pot the better--holes in the sides are good so the roots can grow out into the muck around the pot), make sure it gets lots of sunlight. If shaded, they get smaller and smaller. Heavy, fertile soil, lots of it, and lots of sunlight and they will grow and cover your pond.

Haitidoc - they ARE planted in soil - heavy clay soil that we have here in NY! And... my pond is in FULL ALL day SUN!

Same situation last year, but this time in pots with holes on the sides, and they seem to be doing a bit better this time. Hopefully they will be put in the bottom of the pond this weekend and we shall see what happens.

The only other thought that I have then is to check the ph of the water and maybe this has been mentioned already, but they won't grow well as the ph gets close to 9.

Vic (haitidoc)

Thanks for thinking so much about all this, Vic, but been there done that for water testing. I brought it to 2 different stores and it tested out perfectly all around at both stores.

The one on the left side of the pond is on a shelf that is a little bit lower than the one on the right side, and that one does have larger pads, so I'm thinking once again that the suggestion to lower the pots might be the answer. We'll find out soon. IF it ever stops raining around here!!!

The growing eye of the plant needs to be ABOVE the soil & GRAVEL. (I kinda agree with the WalMart smack). It seems to me from your original photo that you are making a small (young) rhizome cutting compete with your mass of rock. It would be difficult for the young plant to launch itself from that fortress.

Completely clear the rock & soil from the growing eye area

Deeper Water

Warmer Temp

Quality Fertilizer
(every 3 weeks helps)

and eventually a larger shallow container.

:))

WOW - I guess that picture is not clear enough for some of you to see. Almost the entire TINY rhizome is totally clear of any rocks or anything else blocking it from fully growing. The rocks are not crowding it out, nor preventing the stems and pads to form. There are MANY starts coming out from the rhizome - the pad size is what was concerning me.

So once again... the only thing left to try is putting the pots lower in the pond. Thanks once again for everyone's advice. Time will tell now once I lower the pots. And hopefully we will get some sunny days without rain every single day this new month, so that can help warm things up for the lilies to grow.

It could just be the size of the rhizome affecting pad size as well - I've got a white lily whose rhizome is as thick as my wrist and it was consistently putting out 6 or 7" pads, until I noticed a smaller 2" pad just came up - apparently the smaller pad is from a new rhizome that has branched off of the original. I'm guessing that the lily is under about 16 - 18" of water, so maybe you just need to let it develop a bit more?

I have exciting news - there is a bud on one of the lilies!
It's the one that's a bit bigger, and I just saw it this afternoon.

Not the best picture but you get the idea.
{{gwi:205389}}

So now the question is... should I leave the pot where it is, or will the bud continue to develop if I place the pot deeper into the pond?

You can move it, it'll be fine. It will have more time to develop the farther it has to go to the surface too....I'd move it lower...

Thanks Lynne! I just wasn't sure if it would continue to grow a longer stem if I lowered the pot. Do I assume that the pads will also grow longer stems, or are the ones that are already on the surface going to die off once the pot is lowered?

WhooHoo! You have a bud!!! If you are a newbie like me, you're probably tickled!!! This is a pic of a Yardsale lily(bought it for $20/she said it was pink) and I haven't got my pond made yet so this is a rubbermaid tote home...but it has had 3 pink blooms and now this fushia color is the 4th bloom!!! With 2 more coming!! Yowza!! I am making my pond 4ft deep and the plants will sit on black milk boxes, will not be having any plant shelf. I planted this lily like people have suggested here, in a round plastic wide/shallow container, put some osmocoat? and covered with kitty litter, it sits about 20inches deep right now, gets sun all afternoon on the deck. My other lily isn't doing much, just leaves so far, very different from this lily, smaller leaves and mottled, I think the gal who gave it to me said it will be a yellow lily. We shall see. This pic was taken a few days ago and all the leaves are this fusia color now!?

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:205386}}

It'll be fine. They will continue to grow. They adjust rapidly to changing water levels. When it rains hard here, and the water level goes up, mine make it to the surface within hours. :-0) But if you're going to move it, do it soon, before it starts to open. If it opens, then you move it, I'm not sure what would happen. I think the bud would die. I'm sure someone else will weigh in on this too.

Oh, and my pads only got larger when I lowered it. The only reason I have some smaller pads now is, that there is another part of the rhizome starting to grow. Since they are so young, they are very small. But I intend to divide it soon, so the bigger part has more pot, and not having to split the food supply. Not only did the pads get bigger, but so did the stems. They are about 3 times the size of the first pad stems that came out.

Nice lily calamity_j!

Thanks again for the info, Lynne. The pots will be lowered either today or tomorrow, as soon as I can get my husband to agree to do it! :-)

By the way... I've been reading the other pond forum daily - I love all the pictures there. When I get a little more time I will start posting there as well.

Every waterlily does not grow big pads. There are plenty of dwarf and small growing waterlilies. When it blooms it will be a lot easier to determine what cultivar it is.

Wal*Mart and other box store waterlilies are often old or less desirable cultivars that aren't good bloomers and are often mislabeled. They can be frustrating because they aren't good performers and they give you the feeling you are doing something wrong or that waterlilies are difficult to grow.

Some waterlilies bloom a lot easily and some don't. Some grow vigorously and some don't. Some have pads 3" across at full maturity and some grow to 8". It really depends on what waterlily it is.

OK - the pots are on the bottom of the pond and the pads are sticking straight up in the water reaching towards the surface. I could see the green shining in the sun when I got home today, after my husband submerged them, so now I wait for everything to come up top!

Let us know when they make it to the top!(shouldn't take too long...) Pix please. ;-0) I wanna see the bloom. :-0) We should be able to get an idea of what kind it is.

You'll see, they will be very happy now!!!