Garden

[shoekitty]

I have a couple potted Hardy Lilies I put on our new pond this past April.  .  They are blooming now and full of leaves to shade my fishies from the hot sun.

my question is this, how do I prepare and store them for the winter?  I live on California.  It is warm here.  until end of October.  At the worst, it drops to 29 for a couple days in late Jan to early February.  Average daytime in winter is about 52-54, night can drop to 39, with just a few of those freezing nights.  I have a 1000 gallon reciprocating pond, with average temp of 48-50 in winter.  Never freezes. I have had pond since last Oct so my shubunkins were babies then, they did not hibernate.  They begged all winter.  

Do I pull lilies out, cut them back, and keep in pond?  I was told to stop fertilizing late summer. Then wait till leaves turn yellow and cut back to  soil line , and put them back in pond in the deep end of pond.  My pond at deepest,  is 21 inches.

any help would be appreciated.  Thank you!

[gardenman]

I do nothing with mine. I just leave them in the pond all winter and they come back like mad in the spring. My pond has a greenhouse type cover over it in the winter, which keeps the water in the forties most of the winter. (Which in NJ is pretty good considering we get single digit cold in the winter months on occasion.) To say hardy lilies are robust is a bit of an understatement. My white one is literally taking over the pond.

If you're growing tropical lilies it's a bit more challenging keeping them over the winter, but still doable, especially in your climate. As long as the water temp doesn't drop much below fifty, they'll typically survive.

I'm planning to change my greenhouse cover this year to more of a small hoophouse design using PVC pipe and some 2X4's. I'm kind of planning to use it as both a winter cover for the pond and a late winter early spring coldframe by putting boards over the top of the pond and setting my flats of cold tolerant annuals (petunias, geraniums, lobelia, etc.) on the boards. That will free up more space under my plant lights for the less cold tolerant annuals. The water mass should stay warm enough to help heat the coldframe overnight and it should be usable from early March on. (I'll pop a minimum maximum thermometer inside just to be sure, but I'd expect the coldest night to be above fifty and the warmest days to top a hundred under the cover.) My pond currently starts actively growing in March with the old cover and I've kept tropical plants (water hyacincths, cyperus, etc.) alive over the winter inside the old cover, so I'm pretty optimistic this will work.

[hayseed00]

@shoekittyI have a 2000 gallon pond and leave my plants in all winter.  We divide them up about every other year, because they are busting out of the planters.  I also have Arrowhead and water Iris that we cut down in the fall but also leave them in the pond.

[shoekitty]

Thanks all!!  I have fish, so I dont think I would cover it. But we do place a net cover in fall  i think a greenhouse cover is great gardenman...but do you have fish?  I am in California, so I think I just will clean them up, cut them down and let them sit there until spring!!!  The coldest water gets it 48. The fish do okay, so the plants should too.  I have one bog plant, a mexican petunia.  I cant remember what its legal name is.

[gardenman]

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@shoekitty wrote:

Thanks all!!  I have fish, so I dont think I would cover it. But we do place a net cover in fall  i think a greenhouse cover is great gardenman...but do you have fish?  I am in California, so I think I just will clean them up, cut them down and let them sit there until spring!!!  The coldest water gets it 48. The fish do okay, so the plants should too.  I have one bog plant, a mexican petunia.  I cant remember what its legal name is.

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I've got a bunch of goldfish in there. My pond is built above ground out of 2X4's and plywood (all pressure treated) so I don't want ice forming in it. (As water freezes it expands and could blow apart the pond.) It's got a 2X10 top edge around it. My old greenhouse cover was solid on three sides (typical 2X4 wall construction with insulation between the plywood skins) with two sets of storm windows facing south to catch the heat. I'm going to more of a hoop house style cover this year to let more light in and to also let me double it up as a cold frame for my plants next spring. It won't be quite as heat retentive, but should still keep the pond from freezing enough to prevent real trouble.

The hoop house style is pretty darn easy to build. Just make a 2X4 frame and drill holes to accept the PVC pipes that form the arches. Then I'll be using a storm window molding (aluminum with the rubber gasket that's designed to hold window screening but can also hold clear plastic) to lock the plastic in place around the cover. It shoud be easy to assemble each fall and disassemble each spring. Simply peel out the rubber spline, fold and store the plastic cover. Pop out the PVC pipe. Undo the screws at the corners and it's down to a pretty small and manageable pile of stuff to stash away during the warmer months. It'll be hinged on one side to the wooden edging around the pond and have at least one, lilkely two fasteners on the non-hinged side to keep it from blowing open in a nor'easter. A thickish weather strip around the bottom of the 2X4's should help trap in more heat also.

When the weather warms I can prop it open, then let it close on colder nights. It should work okay. I'm not sure the tropical stuff (water hyacincths and cyperus) will survive, but everything else should be okay. The old cover only let light hit the pond when the sun was pretty much due south because it had solid ends. The new cover should keep the pond in light from sunup to sundown since it will be pretty much all clear. There will be more heat/sunlight gained, but also more lost due to the plastic instead of double storm windows and insulated walls. My suspicion is I'll end up with a net heat loss over the old cover, but I could be wrong about that.

Condensation on the inside of the plastic might be an issue. If I can find some sort of moisture proof tape or plastic adhesive, I might add a skirt to the bottom of the inside of the plastic to direct any condensation back into the pond, but finding a material that will withstand those conditions may be asking a lot. 

[hayseed00]

@shoekitty After a couple of hard frosts, we have a long handle pond clipper and cut the lily plants down as far as we can, this helps prevent toxic waste buildup over the winter.  I leave them in their pots in the pond.

[shoekitty]

@hayseed00 

thats what I was thinking.  i dont know what i will do with my one sweet Ryukin who loves the waterlilies, but loves the water lettuce mop better.  if i move the water lettuce an inch, she moves an inch.  in fact just to tease he once in a while I move it around the pond ans watch her wiggle to get under the mop.  she loves it!!!

[hayseed00]

@shoekittyMy Koi are doing their mating game and they trash the waterlilies racing around the pond but I sure enjoy watching my fish. I have Koi. Comets and shaubunkins.  Most of my fish are over ten yrs. old.

[shoekitty]

@hayseed00 

How long are your Shubunkins?  One of mine is big about 7 inches,  and he is only 10 months old.  He is fat too.  He is like a small trout, lol.  He is a sky blue shubunkin.  Poor mans Koi.  They are so relaxing and fun to watch. 

[hayseed00]

@shoekitty My shubunkins are about 12 inches long and they are shaped like yours, the Comets never really get very long about 8 in and my Koi are big about 24 in long but all my fish get along great.