Hi Al,
Good luck with the planting. Take care where you get your waterlilies from.

Many fast spreading odorata hybrids, nuphars come onto the market very cheap. Really unsuitable for a pond, the curse you hear of folk who have choked ponds.

There are very very suitable hybrids, which, folk who know them, and grow them, can steer you toward.

They do all you want in a waterlily, spread at a modest pace, easy to crop and make new positions, go where you want them., do what you like.

Alas, the nursery trade is not what it used to be, the plants dumped on the market tend to be poorly described, poor cultivation information, often taken from ponds with endemic crown rot problems

The situation is not helped when many a special interest message board is littered with dishonest racketeering cliques, Kitt Knott's mailing list, Americanponders and the wgi being among the worst. More ponds wrecked, more bucks wasted on bad information, bad plants, bad choices.

There might still be some good nurseries out there, somewhere, however I haven't come across many that impressed me since visiting Stapeleys and Bennett's, in England, twenty or so years ago

Now they really really would steer you toward stuff that would be a very pleasant long term investment

Regards, andy
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