Questions & Answers (Q&A)
If you are living in the winter zones your summer times would be very short. And if you are interested in growing and raising ‘Tropical Waterlily Seedlings’ in your home, specifically growing the seedlings in your basements, it is going to be an interesting and challenging task.Short summers would give you virtually three months of growing season in a year. Normal time period required from sowing the seed up to the first bloom would need at least seven months for tropical waterlilies.
You can make it easy and systematic simply by following few basic steps along with few requirements. You can think of growing lovely ‘tropical waterlilies’ in the basement of your home using 40-45 gallon plastic containers with bottom heating and artificial light.
When you cross two plants you must cover the fertilized flower with a piece of black panty hose. It will keep the bugs away and will prevent seeds from disbursing in case the pod gets disturbed. You should pick the pod at right time and place them in a jar filled with distilled water. Keep this pod-laden jar on your kitchen counter for almost ten days. Once you observe that the pod is bursting, you will find that all the seeds remain in the jar itself.
You should not forget shaking the pod-laden jar at least once a day. Continue this until you see all the seeds settling down to the bottom of jar. Remove the debris and change the water for two times at the minimum. Once you see all the seeds have settled down the base, filter them with a white coffee filter. Leave the filter and seeds to dry in a safe place for not less than seven days.
After drying the seeds you should store them in a pill bottle having small desicant pill. This method of sprouting seeds can be applied to years old seeds also.
Middle of the October would be the best time to sow the seeds. It is a perfect time which facilitates you with enough time in your hands for growing the seeds up to sufficient size. It should take you almost two weeks for getting seeds sprouted. Further two weeks and you will see the pods coming to surface. Give them few more weeks and then you can easily identify which are looking most interesting. You would be required to repod these most interesting ones in to 4-inch pots for growing further.
Sometimes during the middle of March you will find the weather getting warm day by day and the sun would be high in the sky. You must come to know that it is time to transfer seedlings temporarily to a small greenhouse with heated tank. Seedlings would remain in that warm environment until the time for putting them outdoors arrives. This could be the first week of June.
Outside ponds should be suitable to the space and size according to your choices. You may like to use the fall time to form tubers.
Your ‘basement tanks’ need a little work systematically. Wrap the tank with fiberglass insulation to retain heat. You can use 40-45 gallon plastic containers that can be heated underneath bottom surface. Tank will have a heavy rubber foot warmer depending upon the size. It may measure 24-inches to 48-inches.
Using 60 watts of power would be reliably sufficient. You must ensure that a thermostat is placed for maintaining the water temperature at 80˚F.You may also use submersible heater in case the pad-heater goes out of order.
A homemade light source could be helpful for you. You should use three 2-foot grow fluorescent lights with 40-watts each. This would keep the water warm enough even if the basement temperature goes down up to 45˚F.
Evaporation is one such a problem that would require your attention. You should keep the tank partially covered. This will put the rate of loss of water as low with heat retention. You should never forget adding water to the tank once a week to maintain the comfortable level of depth.
A suitable tank should be almost 22-inches deep. You should maintain the water level about 6-inches above the rim of the tank in such a way that the water level remains at 10-inches.
During winters you will find that growth remains comparatively slow while summers would bring happy growth. For winters liquid fertilizers would help keep the growth minimum but steady. You can think of using a 12-gauge hypodermic needle to inject a stingy amount of liquid fertilizer directly in to the root zone.
Growing tropical waterlilies would be joyous if you follow these simple but systematic actions.
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My name is Bill Stanley and I have been a home gardener for over 20 years. I enjoy sharing my gardening tips with friends and family, as well as the rest of the world!
1 response so far ↓
1 kris // May 21, 2008 at 1:41 pm
hi, i bought a waterlily bulb from home depot yesterday, the kind that comes in a coconut mesh that you’re supposed to just drop in the pond..the bulb was moist and kind of moldy..will it still grow? i’m kinda scared that it might be rotted out..
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