get k30a or jan--i forget which it was--to tell you about the manure she put
in her lilies and the green water that was created...
mad
--
"There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is
already full."
Henry Kissinger

From: Matt Helliwell
Newsgroups: rec.ponds
Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2003 09:44:42 +0100
Subject: how NOT to plant lilies

*muffin* wrote:

I read this *wonderful* idea of how to plant lilies...
it said use a basket (like a clothes one with holes) line it with burlap,, &
plant the lily... it said it would give more 'air' to the roots & soil, so
you wouldn't get that yucky black smelly planting mix..

wellllllllllll.
seemed good idea.

till I was walking into the pond the other day. ( in case you don't
remember, I cannot SEE the bottom of the pond.so had NO clue). & stepped
into MUCKY thick stuff..........hmmm. I bent over,, picked up the 'pot'...
the burlap was almost GONE there was almost no dirt left IN the
container........ all was left was a BIG clump of rhizomes....plus some dirt
& gravel... all the rest had slid to the bottom of the pond....
arrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

ok, now what... NO bottom drain, ( wish I read THIS group before putting in
my pond......but my luck the thing would drain for some reason)..

not sure...... but ~'maybe'~ this is the reason my pond is murky??? would
this ever clear up on its own?? do I NEED to figure out how to +suck+ it
out??

I've had a few pots tip over etc into the pond, it all seems to settle
out and sit on the bottom after a few days. Personally I'd leave the
stuff on the pond as it'll give extra places for insects and what have
you to hide and breed.

Somebody will be along in a minute to tell you you should just plant the
lily in a big bucket....

--
Matt Helliwell
www.helliwell.me.uk
matt at helliwell dot me dot uk




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"*muffin*"
I read this *wonderful* idea of how to plant lilies...
it said use a basket (like a clothes one with holes) line it with burlap,, &
plant the lily... it said it would give more 'air' to the roots & soil, so
you wouldn't get that yucky black smelly planting mix..

Muffin,
I took the lily you sent me and had it planted (it was so big, and my
being new at this, I wasn't sure how to handle it), anyway the pro's
pottted it into a regular 5 gallon black landscape pot with bottom
holes. They put 4 layers of newspaper over bottom holes and used a
potting mixture made of 1/2 plain bagged top soil & 1/2 half builders
sand. (He said by the time the paper breaks down the roots will hold
the mix from going out of the small holes). Put a small layer of this
mix in bottom of pot and added the fert pellets near the bottom
covered with some more soil mix and planted the lily. On top they
added a 1/2" layer of sand to keep soil mix in the pot. No stones,
because it makes adding additional fert pellets very difficult later
on. this seems to work beautifly as they have huge terrific lilies in
there demo ponds. As to the mix if you have dirt you could mix it 1/2
with sand. Here we have all sand so we need to buy topsoil. I added
two criscross plastic coated wire handles to this pot for ease of
handling. Just another way to pot lilies, there are many that work.

BTW...I had potted all my lilies into dishpans with no bottom holes,
using Aqua soil, topped with stones. VERY EXPENSIVE, very heavy,
stones made it difficult to add fert pellets when refertlizing
(especially since I couldn't see down more than 6" in my pond, so I
couldn't see the pots). Also like you said it makes smelly mix. I
will be redoing all of mine with the above method next spring.

Sue W

"Tom La Bron" wrote in message
...
BV et al,

Remember me, I tried the rocks in the pot technique and my plants are not
doing worth a damn. The new filter I built this spring must be doing
great,
because I would assume that the lilies are suppose to get their nutrient
from the water, but the new filter is doing such a great job there is
nothing left for the plants to use out of the water.

Draw your own conclusions, I don't think that I will have any plants to
divide and get rid for postage new spring, so I am either going back to my
clay garden soil or some of the aquatic soil which is not much more than
clay kitty litter.

I guess it all depends on your water chemistry.

snip

Seems like the only constant that is universal in ponding is, "There are no
constants in ponding." *laugh* MY plants are going crazy potted in stones. A
couple of my non-pond plants, like the $2 grasses I got from the supermarket
have massive roots jutting into the pond, and they are just stuffed between
two boulders.

BV.

On Fri, 08 Aug 2003 21:50:12 -0500, mad wrote:

get k30a or jan--i forget which it was--to tell you about the manure she put
in her lilies and the green water that was created...
mad

Oh yeah, that was I, if you want to get rid of your murky green water, just
add a little manure to the potting soil. You'll have the brightest green
pond... you'll have to wear shades. ;o)

Only in my case I started with a perfectly clear pond and using soil from
the garden that DS had already dug steer manure into. I thought my filter
could handle it.... and truthfully it did, at night. In the wee hours the
open cell foam actually sieved the suspended algae out, but come sun up I
was back to BRIGHT green. Removed pots, replaced soil to stuff that didn't
have manure, added lots of BZT and within a few days had it clear again.
~ jan


See my ponds and filter design:
http://users.owt.com/jjspond/

~Keep 'em Wet!~
Tri-Cities WA Zone 7a
To e-mail see website

I think part of the problem may be the "burlap" -- there's the
old-fashioned burlap, made of jute(?) which was used to hold the rootballs
of large plants & trees, then disintegrate after being planted (anyone else
here old enough to remember when peat moss came in burplap bales?), and
there's stuff I've seen marketed these days as burlap, but it looks like
very-loosely-woven plastic tarp, and it might actually work as muffin
described.

Anne Lurie
Raleigh, NC

"~ jan JJsPond.us" wrote in message
...
muffin wrote: it said use a basket (like a clothes one with holes) line
it with burlap,, &
plant the lily... it said it would give more 'air' to the roots & soil,
so
you wouldn't get that yucky black smelly planting mix..
wellllllllllll.
seemed good idea.

It is a good idea, imo, ime, BUT, burlap rots, better is to use weed cloth
fabric. The cheap kind without root grow inhibitors. Line your basket,
fill
with soil & plant. Make strips of the fabric, lay on top of the soil and
top with large river rock. Doing this keeps the soil in place when taking
plant in and out. I do plant many marginals just in rocks in baskets, but
if I want blooms I use my sandy soil.

I think part of the problem may be the "burlap" -- there's the
old-fashioned burlap, made of jute(?) which was used to hold the rootballs
of large plants & trees, then disintegrate after being planted (anyone else
here old enough to remember when peat moss came in burplap bales?), and
there's stuff I've seen marketed these days as burlap, but it looks like
very-loosely-woven plastic tarp, and it might actually work as muffin
described.

Anne Lurie
Raleigh, NC

"~ jan JJsPond.us" wrote in message
...
muffin wrote: it said use a basket (like a clothes one with holes) line
it with burlap,, &
plant the lily... it said it would give more 'air' to the roots & soil,
so
you wouldn't get that yucky black smelly planting mix..
wellllllllllll.
seemed good idea.

It is a good idea, imo, ime, BUT, burlap rots, better is to use weed cloth
fabric. The cheap kind without root grow inhibitors. Line your basket,
fill
with soil & plant. Make strips of the fabric, lay on top of the soil and
top with large river rock. Doing this keeps the soil in place when taking
plant in and out. I do plant many marginals just in rocks in baskets, but
if I want blooms I use my sandy soil.

Muffin,

sorry for your troubles. In my previous problem I had a similar
problem due to racoons tossing the lillies while fishing. Like you I
didn't have a bottom drain in the pond. I attached one of those tetra
retrofit bottom drains to a pump and sucked all the muck out that way.
Once I was finished, I attached the bottom drain to a piece of
flexible black PVC and installed it permanently in the pond. I still
had the Racoons but at least the bottom drain was in to pick up the
muck. The retrofit bottom drain is no where near as nice as a built
in bottom drain ( I have two in my new pond ) but if you can hide the
piping they work quite well.

Good luck,
Kevin