With all the rain on Saturday, I wasn’t in the mood to do much in the garden. I did however pick up some new and unusual submerged plants from an aquarium store to trial in the pond. The species is Blyxa japonica, and hailing from subtropical Japan, I am hoping it will be happy outdoors in the pond. I have just potted it in aquatic planting mix with a mulch of coarse river sand, and placed it on the edge of the pond where it will receive full sun. Hopefully it grows.
During the week I finally made a decision on what variety of hardy lily I wanted at the back of the pond. I wanted three hardy lilies to position along the back of the pond. This area is shaded in winter, but will receive full sun in summer, so hardy types should perform better than tropicals, which I will place along the front half. I really wanted a cultivar with flowers that are held above the water similar to the tropical types. After watching a lot of YouTube videos, I ruled out Colorado and Wanvisa, which seem overly vigorous, and settled on the more mannerly Red Spider. Red Spider is perhaps the most tropical looking hardy available here, with tall stems supporting red blooms with unique pointed, crumpled petals. I saw a picture of Red Spider alongside a purple tropical, and the combination is stunning. They also have attractive red spited foliage.
While the new lilies were only recently potted into mesh baskets, I wanted to start them off in big basins so that they have room to spread out. I added four lily fertiliser tabs to the base, placed a layer of soil on top, set the lily rhizome in place, added more soil and finally added a capping layer of river sand. The basins I used are just a 16L, 45cm diameter plastic wash basin, but they are perfect for hardy lilies.
For now I have placed them at the front of the pond in full sun. But as the sun moves overhead, I will shift them backward into their permanent positions.
Mark has done the math and with the addition of these three, I now have sixteen lilies in the pond. But as I told him, five are only miniatures, so they don’t count. I definitely still have room for some bright blue tropicals!