On Aug 10, 8:20 pm, Galen Hekhuis wrote:
On Sun, 10 Aug 2008 19:01:39 EDT, "D Kat"
wrote:

If you don't know or you tend to forget as I do - water lilies are heavy
feeders and if you want flowers you need to remember to feed them. I
feed
my water lilies when the blooming drops off (and it is still growing
season). I only feed my lotus at the beginning of the season. I'm
not sure
about this and wonder if I should be feeding it more often... Any lot
us
growers around? Donna

I don't do lotus but I can add a useless data point. After carefully
selecting my lily (going to WalMart and grabbing whatever is there), I
gingerly plant it (throw it in the pond), and then care for its every
need (forget about it completely). I've had three blooms already from
this one lily. It kinda surprised me and I thought three was doing
pretty good, especially considering the attention I lavish on it.
Would it bloom even more if I fertilized it, and how would I go about
fertilizing it? Can I just throw some fertilizer in the water? I
don't have any fish.

If you throw fertilizer in the water you are going to have pea soup
for water IMO (I really don't do crystal balls but this is as close to
predictable as you can get). If you want more blooms, I would
recomment putting the lily tuber in a pot with clay/sand (NOT loam,
potting soil, or any enriched soil - unsented kitty litter made of
clay will work but poor garden soil is better). You can buy plant
pills for water plants that you shove down into the middle of the soil
or you can wrap up some flowering plant fertilizer in newspaper and
bury this in the middle of the pot. Plant the tuber so that it lays
on top of the soil - the same as you would an English iris.

Yes it should give you many more blooms. For example, shortly after
my feeding I got 5 blooms at once. It had tapered off to just one now
and again. I have had my lilies in the pond as you do and while they
get by, which may just be all you want or need, they do not flower
heavily - at least they never did for me.

Donna