I have lilies planted in dishpans, oil pans, plastic mesh baskets and in cloth ones. After re-potting my lilies this year, I believe the very best are the cloth ones. But they are more expensive. I have planted with oil dry or plain unscented kitty litter. I've used bought pond plant clay soil (Scotts), and I've used pea gravel. I've had good luck with all. The first year I planted 2 of my lilies in 5 gallon used plaster-masonry buckets and oil dry and the roots grew through the sides and spilled the oil dry all in my pond and made a mess. But these 2 lilies grew more than any other I had or have had since. I planted my first lilies with potting soil and covered with egg stones. It worked ok, but some of the perlite did float up into the pond, but I overflowed the pond and got rid of it. The lilies did well in that also. Glenda

I would be happy to send you a BIG flat rate Priority box stuffed full of Minature Rosette Water Hyacinths and a bit of Parrots Feather, Variegated Water Celery and Primrose Creeper for postage.

Without a picture, I'd suspect a beech. I've seen the beech here in Western NY State hang onto at least some portion of their leaves though the winter. The American beech (Fagus grandifolia) have 9-14 pairs of veins on their toothed leaves. (The European Beech have less pairs of veins in the leaves.) I included a link to pix of American Beech leaves.... FataMorgana Here is a link that might be useful: Google - Am. Beech leaves

It is hard to tell the scale of the picture; in other words, I can't tell how tall the plant is, but it looks a lot like a sedge in the genus Cyperus. These are usually called Nutsedges for the nut-like nodules on the roots. They are native, but a weed in gardens. There are several species, I think.