Pink water lily surprised me!

I had grown this nicely in the first pond I made. When the second pond was made and had this in it along with the blue lily. The blue lily was the only one that put up grand shows for 4 years now almost every day. I had forgotten after one or two years about the pink lily. Now 3 days ago, I was surprised to see it in bloom!! I had removed the overgrown blue lily plant two months ago and left the smaller plants. What a pleasant surprise this is now. The blue ones are also maturing again. But this pink flower stays open for just 2-3 hours in the morning, unlike the blue which stays open till evening. The leaves are also darker in the pink variety.

Beautiful. Also, I think I see water hyacinths right?

Bonnie

Yes, Bonnie, they are water hyacinths. I have removed a lot of them. I keep the plants in summer so that it protects water from summer heat and then when summer is over, I remove most of it and keep only that much and keep removing thereafter till next summer.

Dinu, I'll try to remember the name of that one for you. I have it also (Bonnie will too as soon as a get time to buzz to her house) Once they start blooming they are beautiful looking! They are night time bloomers, so as soon as the sun starts to come up, they start to close up. If you mix them in with your normal daytime lilies, one closes while the other opens. Even when not blooming, the bronze leaves are very pretty.

Even though they are deep fuschia pink, I think(?) it is called Red Flare.

Going by this clue, I too checked for Red Flare.... rubra.... of course, Nymphaea. I have the caerulea [blue] which is yet to mature fully. I have not edited the picture I posted above and so the colour you see is true..hoping the computer monitors present it right. Mine does. I have not checked if it opens at night. Have to remember to go out and check.

This is on the first day I saw. It was already closing up before I went to work.

Yes, the picture is the exact color of mine (including the leaves) I'm prettys sure the ID is correct. They are such a beautiful deep pink. At first I was disappointed that it wasn't a daytime lily, but am learning to love it anyway. I can enjoy it with my morning coffee. :)

Here's a picture of mine, I think we have the same thing.

Yes Mary, same one. The one extreme left has opened fully. Mine does not open like that - petals pointing down, I mean. The first picture I posted above shows the maximum it opens [peak]. Now I don't see a second bud at present. May be it will take some time. I too enjoy my morning coffee near my pond almost invariably unless I'm watering my plants holding my coffee in the left hand. I take breakfast there too! I'm so happy to have the pink being reborn! The surprise bloom went down yesterday.

I dug out some old pictures I have. I can't believe I have been ponding and pondering (!) since 10 years! Here are some images from 2004, 2007 of the pink lily. That was the only one I had until the blue one arrived. The 2004 image is from the film camera, the pre-digital era for me and I used to squeeze out the maximum from the small Emprex camera that was gifted to me by a DG-er in 2006 using my own lenses to take macros!!

Beautiful pictures of a beautiful lily. My pond is a mess and I just don't have the energy to get in and clean it up.

Thanks mittsy. Why don't you 'half clean' it? It will be enough for a long while.

I'm 71 and can't get out of the pond without help, DH is disabled and mom is 94. Darn kids all moved away to find jobs. No $ to hire help.

Mittsy

Can you hire a student or someone to give you a hand?

Mittsy, your pond looks beautiful. Wish you could see me get out of my bigger pond. Jump to my rump on walkway, roll to one side and then push up from knees. Sometimes I have a hard time getting up for sitting there laughing at myself and thinking how I look. I'm 77 this year and my son suggested my DH make 3 small steps to make it easier. May have to consider that.
My son and his boys helped me build that pond and now 1/2 the big fish in there are his so when it gets down to a really difficult job I will tell them to come over. So far I can handle all the jobs related to ponding myself but I know someday I won't be able to. Another good reason to give him 5 acres to build a new house on the upper half of our land. He has always had new houses in developments cause that's what they could afford but he says he wants to come back home. That's fine with me. Someday Charlie won't be able to take care of the cows needs either and he has already been helping with that also. He gets 1/2 of any cow we butcher and that helps him feed his family so it's a big help all the way around.

Happy ponding everyone.

Bonnie D.

Mittsy, I'd just add a couple of goldfish and let it be. The lilies are beautiful!

Bonnie, I can just picture you rolling around the front yard! (Hope it's one of the days I buzz by!) :) I often look the same way, my family says I stand up like a plane taking off...bent over, building altitude, and then swooping on up while gaining height! My son-in-law uttered one day that you could now take off your seatbelts and move around the cabin, lol. Aches and pains, but I still get things done.
My sister has MS and I took her to EPCOT and pushed her in a wheelchair (so we could actually make it around the place!) Between me gimping while pushing her around, we were laughing so hard it was one of the best times I've ever had! No matter how much I hurt at times, I'm blessed in so many ways....life is good!
Going to work on the poind digging again tomorrow, until the heat takes over. We'll see how much I get done, but every shovel full is another step forward.

:)

You see, that is the beauty of gardening! It makes anyone feel younger which is the key to health.... physical problems are just like machines creaking and nothing more..... it is THAT nice feeling that is HEALTH! Agree? I'm so glad women aged 71, 77 and all ages doing ponds and digging the earth. Of course, the body needs extra help after a certain stage.
I laughed reading at how one 'takes off like an areoplane'... and climb up to the rump on the walkway, roll over, knees.....! Very funny. You see, just even imagining such things reflects a young mind!

Today I noticed how many bronze leaves I have now. The pink one is all over now. May be this was kept smothered by that overgrown blue lily which I removed 3 months ago. May be this has now found the right conditions to come up. Anyway I'm so happy to see it back.

Dinu, laughter is the best medicine and if you can't laugh at yourself at times then you have a problem. LOL

OK Merry Delta Mary, watch the heat index or you will be flying low. I hope your working in the shade.

Well I may do a little more loading pruned stuff and then it's inside work of which I have plenty.

Take care all.

This thread made me smile. :)

I'm a bit younger and I could still very much relate to your process of getting in the pond! It can be a very complex process. Sometimes I feel like I have the grace of a hippo along the banks of the nile when I exit the pond after tending to it. lol!

Keep ponding and being awesome everyone.

Second flower was up 3 days ago. This time also I forgot to see if it was open at night.
Two blue water lilies at the back are seen behind the pink - see they are not yet open by 8.30 am, Sunday morning. They open by 9.

That pink lily is simply beautiful.

I'm thinking of taking a little step stool and dropping it into pond edge when I have to get in and out to work on it. Might make it easier to get in and out. Ponds are only 2 feet deep so should work OK.

Bonnie D.

Hello Bonnie, yes, it will be worth the circus! My pond is also 2 feet deep, but now, as you can see in the picture above, the water level is down by about 6-7 inches from the brim due to roots piercing the liner and water holds up only up to that level. Time to be changing it.

Dinu

Good luck changing your liner. That's a major job around here. My ponds are both under a large oak tree and I wouldn't surprise me if roots penetrated it. Large pond does have cement block wall on tree side but older smaller pond doesn't and it's been in ground for over 5 years.

Glad your such a devoted ponder.

Bonnie

As they say, once a gardener, always a gardener.. so holds good for a 'ponder'! There is something in this. Here, not all can even think of a pond! They see only in big hotels and resorts, but when they see a pond here at home, their eyebrows fly skywards. A cement block wall? Very wise and worth the extra expense. I don't know when I'll have the patience to change the liner which means starting all over again.

I have put liners over old ones. It's a little less exhausting than pulling the old one. It also gives a barrier between roots and the new liner.

We had the cement blocks left from another project I guess. All I bought was some bags of cement and rebar and I found out block laying wasn't so hard. Husb. put in first course of block so I knew it would be straight and even and I didn't want to wait another day so I put the rest up.

M. Mary suggestion is a good one. I chopped out all the roots I could while we were digging pond but they are still pretty close. Time will tell.

Bonnie

I may also do that - put the new liner on top of the old one, but I may still add something that will make the roots go down at the sides and not through the new liner. My first one also lasted 3 years but the trees were too close - just 5 feet!!

Bonnie, was that rebar for laying foundation to that wall?

No. I put rebar down through all the blocks and then added cement down through all the blocks around each piece of rebar. Makes for a good strong wall.

Bonnie

That's how I did mine too, Bonnie. So far they've all held throughout the years. It's really needed in sandy soil like we have here in Florida.

I thought they were solid blocks. Now I get the picture from the description. They are hollow blocks and you have put the rebars through the holes into the ground, vertically. I did not imagine you would be filling cement into those. Now it is clear.