What do I need to do with my water lily plants for winter?

This is the time of year that most water plants begin to go dormant. If you have hardy water lily plants you will notice less flowering and less pad output. If your plant is directly planted into your pond or if it is planted into a pot and placed into your pond, the main thing to remember is that it needs to be below the freeze line. If your pond freezes over and your lily plant rhizome freezes, it will die. If it is planted at least 12" or deeper then you are probably o.k. Many water and bog plants are also showing a slow down and becoming dormant. Same thing goes for these as well. If you had any type of floating plant like a primrose creeper or parrots feather and it was just floating on top of the water...it WILL freeze and die. It needs to be potted and also below the freeze line to be able to come back up in the spring. All these plants will die down and will not be seen again until next Spring when water warms back up again.

Some plants like your water lettuce and hyacinths will die if left outside in the winter months. You can bring a small section of these into the house to overwinter in a tub until you can then place it back out onto the pond water.