On Sun, 09 Jul 2006 12:17:01 -0700, ~ janj
wrote:

Jobe's Tomato Spikes. :-) ~ jan

Of course! If it ain't broke don't fix it. I ran out of time and
energy and looked for a less time consuming way to fertilize pond
plants. I'm still not totally sold on the AgSafe spikes, but they
were easier this year, and I only had to do it once.

I have overcrowding of leaves, even on the lilies with more distance
between. It doesn't seem to be a serious problem, the leaves just
angle up from the water a bit and block sun from the earlier leaves.
They generally grow out a bit farther, until some are covering others,
but I guess that probably happened before and I may not have noticed
it.

I have about a 6x6 ft. hot tub that I converted to a lily pond just
outside the back door and a 6" end of a 30 gal barrel fits into the
lower section nicely. I started with 4 red lilies in that barrel
end, (I've forgotten the name, but they grow in 3' depths.) but I took
one out and left three. The three fill the area quite well and I
think next year I should cut the number down to two. It is quite a
show stepping outside the door to 3 to 5 blooms almost daily, but the
leaves in the center of the tub are crowded and mostly at about 20 to
30 degrees and sometimes hide one or more of the blooms. I think
this is the higher nitrogen 12-20-8 formulation instead of a 6-12-6
like the tomato spikes. I don't recall an overgrowth of leaves when
I used tomato spikes.

Regards,

Hal