Oh wow Debbie.....that's really weird. No blossoms in 4 years??
I've gotten all my lilies from either Walmart or Menards, and they've all done great. Sounds like you got a lemon! I ordered a lotus from ewaterlily. I've had good luck with William Tricker as far as their marginals, but they did send me the wrong lotus once. But their other stuff was very healthy.
I've heard of a couple people who bought from Walmart and their's didn't survive and they called the company who puts out the waterlilies and they replace them....but you probably don't have the container anymore with the name on it. Hey....I think I do. Let me check and I'll let you know. You could take a picture of your lily leaves and send it to them with a note saying it must have been sterile or something.
It might be a good idea to wait until next spring though. Sorry for your bad luck.

Whhen I started out my lilies didn't bloom and died. I found on the Net information about Muriate of Potash[ or Sulphate] at the garden shops. Dissolve 2-3 tablespoons in a liter or pint of water. Then add 1/8 cup/ 100 gallons of pond water twice a week. Later you can decrease it to once a week. Happy water gardening.

Hi again Debbie,
Here's a pic of the container my Walmart waterlily was in. Did your's look like this? It had a fake flower on top of it.
The side of the container says:
"Warranty Pledge of Quality: Use our horticultural products with confidence. If for any reason you are not satisfied with the results of the produce you have purchased write to: U.S.A. P.O.Box 2000, Virginia Beach, VA 23450. Include product label and proof of purchase. We will replace at no charge."
I'm sure you still don't have your receipt, but I'm thinking if you write a nice letter and send them a picture, they will reimburse you or send you another plant.
If they insist on a label, I could send you the one off this pot. I'm sure this would be alot of work for you, and you might just rather order a different one from somewhere else.......but I thought I'd at least show you this info. Unfortunately, the label doesn't have an email address. Good luck to you.
Oh....and yes, I think you might be happier with a smaller variety. I'm not sure you have to go to a dwarf. Sometimes the seller can tell you the size of the area that the particular lily grows to, and you might find just a smaller regular lily.

I bought a waterlily at walmart and it died immediately. I wrote to the company which was van bourgondian. they replaced it the following summer. now its 3 years later and i still get only one or two tiny, tiny leaves and no blooms. yes I fertilize.

Debbie, I have grown waterlilies for over 20 years. they are like dandelions. I don't fertilize. Some are in unfiltered ponds and some in filtered. I just use regular dirt topped off with small gravel or pebbles.(our soil is sandy, not clay) Years ago I bought tabs to fertilize them and just found the jar. Never used. Put them in the pond and leave them alone. This year we bought some tubers online and planted them, they have come up. Hardy lilies are a little slower to bloom. Regular white or pink ones will come up right away. I bought six pots with leaves already coming up also --they are blooming away. Buy them from a nursery that sells water plants. they only cost $24.95. I have a small pond less than 6 feet long and regular waterlilies are doing fine. I also have 2 other ponds. Full sun all day must be the explanation. Where are you? I am in SoCal but they die back in winter here, but they do come back.

Wow! Wish I'd read that warranty pledge on the walmart plants. All 3 were DOA. I still have the package for the Fabiola. Might just send a nice letter. I bought about half of my good plants from eWaterlily and they were all wonderful. Plus the priority mail shipping was cheap and they were well packaged.
Vanessa

I bought a box of 4 water plants from WalMart 6 summers ago, two hardy lilies and 2 marginals. The marginals never grew. The lilies have bloomed their heads off and multiplied like rabbits ever since. I can't give them away fast enough. I bought another this spring and it has already had 3 blooms. I use Oscomote, composted manure and kitty litter topped with small rocks.

I bought a couple of lilies from a lady in Houston several years ago. One of them bloomed like crazy the first summer and the other took 4 summers to have more than one bloom.

I bought 3 off E-bay last summer...one is blooming like crazy and the other 2 are barely surviving.

These blooms are all from the WalMart hardy lilies. Red and White.
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I wonder why that pic didn't show up. I'll try it again.
I have noticed at Walmart that you really have to look at those plants. Some of them have alot of mold growing on them. I bought mine early in the season, and made sure there were green stems growing under the packaging. I can't believe Walmart used to sell those still at the end of summer, when I'm sure none of them were alive.
Mammasue......I love your tank. You can probably leave your's in there during winter, right?
Is that 300 gallon?
Water lilies are so prolific, even out of a fairly small pot, so I could use that big stocktank and probably fill it full of lily pads and flowers from 1 smallish pot, which I could sink into my other ponds for the winter. I just love raised tanks. I just can't lean over like I used to.
Speaking to their durability.........I put left-over lilies from my early spring thinning into a pot and just left them with a little water. Of course they don't produce blossoms, but all the leaves are still alive. They've been so abused!
Debbie......I'd be glad to send you some of those abused ones. I'm just not sure how they would do in this hot weather for the transport. But let me know. They are Rose Arey lilies........a beautiful pink. I'm in zone 5 too, so it probably wouldn't take long to ship them......although I've never done that before.
Oh...here's that pic of the pot from Walmart:
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catherinet...that is an ole leaky 8' by 24" stocktank lined with carpet and I'm using a kiddie pool for a liner. It will hold about 17 inches of water.It should hold about 500 gallons minus the pots etc. There are 8 dishpans with 3 or 4 lilies each in there. It is way overcrowed but the water is perfectly clear with no filter or pump. I do two 30% water changes weekly by syphoning it out to my Gd's pumpkin patch or dipping it into flower pots. There are 10 goldies from last years spawn in also. The tank with pump and skippy is so green I can't see the fish.

Thanks Mammasue,
I have no idea why some of my tanks are crystal clear, without a pump, and some have a ton of algae. I'm thinking it has something to do with the type of plants??
Do you leave all those plants in your stocktank over winter?
Why do you need to use a carpet liner? Does the kiddie pool fit perfectly?

I have had 3 types of water lilies purchased at Lowe's, WalMart and one ordered online.. living in my 100 gal koi pond with circulation through 2 other ponds - all with lilies and a whiskey barrel with no circulation. Have always had good luck but this year the red one has not bloomed at all. The others are doing fine. Thought it might be due to repotting and placing in deeper water but it has beautiful leaves and I have used the pond tabs monthly so I too am disappointed but not giving up.

Thanks so much for all of the suggestions!! I purchased the water lily is a box with 2 other water plants, neither which made it. I am going to try the potash and see if that helps. If I don't have blooms by the end of the season it is going into the compost pile and I am ordering a new lily next spring. Will keep you posted.

Some varieties of lilies can be very fussy bloomers. Conditions have to be just so for them to bloom. I would try fertilizing it with something that has a bit more phospherous such as Jobes tomato spikes. You can usually find them at Ace or True Value Hardware stores. Using Osmocote in the bottom of the pot is another good choice.
It could also be an issue of how deep the plant is. Some lilies will do fine and bloom well in shallow water, but move them to deep water and they don't bloom as well, and vice-versa.

Ewaterlily is a good place to order another lily. I wouldn't get an Aurora though as they can be fussy and slow to bloom. If you want to see blooms I would purchase a lily that is known to be a good bloomer such as Attraction, Pink Beauty, Colorado, etc.

Oh.....I thought you bought the water lily by itself. Some time ago I bought one of those boxes with 3 marginals in it and none of them grew.
My rose arey blooms really well. I got it at Menards.
And so does my sulphurea, which I got at Menards. If you buy from one of those stores again, get the ones that come in the container I showed you, and you can see the actual growth at the top, through a clear dome on the pot.
Good luck to you. I'm sorry you've never been able to enjoy blooms from your lily! But I'd say you gave it your best shot.

I've come to the conclusion that buying plants at Wally World is shortsighted. I typed something else in there at first but decided I want to continue to post. We have 3 open here at the moment with two more to open shortly. We have lived near newly opened stores frequently. Often when they first open the plants are pretty nice and then after the first season or even in the first few weeks the quality goes down fast. I've had several conversations with their employees and it all depends on the person they hire to run the department. Once I went into a plant dept and the plants were absolutely amazing. The difference from the previous month was almost a shock. I asked for the manager because I wanted to complement whoever was responsible. It turned out it was a tiny little thing from Hawaii who drove the other employees crazy because she actually made them work. She rearranged all the products and made sure the plants were properly cared for and there was a good selection. She didn't last long. There were too many complaints from other employees. It is similar to the aquarium dept. They hire the occasional person who knows what they are doing and then the dept manager won't let them take care of the fish because it is too time consuming. One enterprising manager convinced his bosses to let him get rid of the fish entirely because it took too much time away from stocking the shelves. He told his department that he didn't care if all the fish died or the tanks were filthy because the fish didn't make sense salewise. The last tanks disappeared about 5 weeks ago. I am getting the same reports on our Meijers stores as well. Those little containers with the bulbs in them? This was the first year I have seen them put out in any condition to sell. Most of the time they are placed in direct sun with no water and in excessive heat. I have seen other packaged plants that are carried over from the last year and sold as a new shipment. Don't try to invest too much into those Walmart plants. Take a look at the employees and see if they are taking a break or taking care of the plants. Sandy

Like I said earlier, you just have to look at each plant and make sure its still alive. I couldn't believe last year that Walmart was still trying to sell their water plants even after they all had mold all over them with no sign of life. You just have to dig around the top of the packaging and make sure there's green stuff growing with no mold. Unfortunately with those combo-water plant packages, there's no seeing in them.
Our Walmart store quit with the fish a long time ago. This spring almost all of their outdoor plants were dying because they hadn't been watered in forever.
I think Walmart struggles with not having enough employees, because they are such a struggling company. (NOT!).
The water plants from Menards always looked alot more vigorous and healthy. But all of these plants are shipped long distances and sit there a long time. I suppose its best to buy from a watergarden company online who might not harvest them until you want them. But sometimes they don't work out either....

Every water Lily that I have, don't even know how many, I've lost count; I bought on line. Trying to think back at least 15. Never had one yet that didn't thrive and bloom. Guess I've just been lucky. 2 of them I re-potted and now have about 3 of each of those that already need to be re-potted. Next spring I can repot and supply several ponds with lilies probably. They are going crazy. Glenda

I bought a lily this season from Walmart to put in my small front pond and it was a James Brydon. The plant had small pads on it. I dropped it in and that is it. It has about 10 all red pads and has put up three blooms.

I think you have to get them when they first get shipped to the store because they get no care and no water from Walmart. They sell them inside the store for crying out
loud! That is the only waterlily I bought from Walmart and it really must come out of that mesh container but I'm going to see if it jumps that pot on it's own and just let it be. It did say to insert a fertilizer tab which I didn't do yet either.

I buy my waterlilies from Lilypons (the Maryland store). They have a location in Texas too. I always get huge, healthy plants from them. I've seen where they grow the plants last year when a friend and I drove there. Pond after pond full of lilies, lotus and marginals. It is fun to walk the berms between the growing ponds with the frogs leaping into the ponds as you approach. Saw herons of various types, snakes, turtles and fish too.

Hi comettose.....sounds like I place I'd love to visit!
How do they actually "harvest" them? Must be a pain!
I'm not sure where you live, but have you ever been to the Kennilworth Aquatic gardens outside of Washington D.C.?
Sounds like the Lilypons place, although they don't sell. Just pond after pond of lotus. Its heaven!

Most of the varieties sold by Wal*Mart are not premium varieties although James Brydon is an exception.

Some do bloom much more than others. Some require much more room than others. Some won't bloom if potbound.

Check your fertilizer, you want the middle number (phosphorus) higher than the first number for blooming. Jobe's Tomato Spikes are perfect and cheaper than pond tabs.

Colorado, Perry's Baby Red, Helvola, Joann Pring, Joey Tomocik, Charlene Strawn, Virginalis, Attraction, are some known for being good bloomers but all are going to want full sun.

There are a few waterlilies that tolerate shade but not many. James Brydon is one. Chromatella is another.

Many waterlilies are mislabeled out there. Especially at Wal*Mart.

I started out with five water lilies, and I did come across one that would not bloom. In fact, I think it finally died this past winter. I bought it at Petsmart, but it was packaged exactly the same as those at Walmart. Maybe there is an occasional "dud". My other lilies have all bloomed repeatedly.