Plant Doctor Archive

Water Gardens — Water lilies

MY water lilies seem to be dying back for the winter. How should I treat them from now on?

HARDY water lilies will certainly start dying back about now. Remove the dead foliage and flowers as they turn brown, then simply leave the plants where they are until next season. If they have been in the same pot for three years or more, repot them about July or August.

Tropical water lilies will still have some time to go yet, but treat them the same as hardy lilies when they start to die back in late autumn.

The only difference really is that if you live in an area where the pond surface freezes over, you should lift the tropicals and store them in a shed over winter.

Reproduced with permission from the former Weekend Gardener magazine. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the RNZIH.