Thursday 15 September 2011

Water Lilies in bloom


  Its been a few months since I pushed tiny bulbs into the "water containers". Now I have white and pink blooms showing up every other day.
 Container water gardening was something I always wanted to try, so I just moved an old glass aquarium to the terrace and setup my first water lily container. Now i have two containers with three varieties of lilies.

Setting up a water lily container is simple, all you need is:
  • Any container that holds water, I have tried glass, cement and plastic.
  • At least six inches of heavy garden soil (more the better) at the bottom of the container.
  • Six to twelve inches of water above the soil.
  • A variety of lily that is suitable for your climate. I live in Bangalore so almost any variety will thrive here.
  • Plenty of sunlight (At least six hours of sunlight)
 White lilly, water cabbage and rush grass

Night blooming tropical lily


   I also fertilized the soil before adding water. I used regular garden fertilizer and topped it with layer of regular soil without fertz (hoping the fertilizer doesn't leach out into the water and cause an algae bloom, it worked :)).
  Oh, I forgot to mention that I also have a few fish in the containers. Mollies in the cement tanks (shown in picture) and gold fish in the glass tanks.

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