Propagation Methods
Water Lily Propagation, Culture and Winter Care
When it comes to propagating your plants, there are several methods by which to do so. The method you choose should be based on the conditions, soil and type of water lilies present in your habit. For instance the most widely used method of propagating Hardy water lilies is by root division. However, there may be alternatives that could be taken in this instance. The following article aims to show you how to adapt your propagation, culture and winter care to your specific set of conditions and species of water lily.
Propagation of Hardy Water Lilies
Whether or not you want to start new plants, root division is still necessary every two or three years. If left alone for four or five years, rootstocks of some of the stronger growing forms become quite cumbersome. At this stage many of them become torpid, their vitality seriously impaired. Keep this in mind if the blooms and foliage of your plants begin to look sickly and listless after years of faithful, vigorous production. Division usually restores health quickly.
Root division is a quick and simple operation. First, wash off the roots so that you can see what you are doing. You will notice growing points, which look like the eyes of sprouted potatoes, springing from the long, cylindrical odorata and tuberosa roots. With a sharp knife, cut each root into 6- to 8-inch sections, making sure that each section has a growing point or two. Plant the sections as you would rootstocks from a dealer. Each growing point will produce a new water lily.
Make up your mind at the beginning whether you want to reproduce plants like the parent species, variety form or try for a new hybrid. If you want true reproduction, you need only keep matching parent plants to themselves, protecting them from stray pollen. You can help out with the pollination if you like but most of the Hardies that are self-seeding. If you want to try for a new hybrid, you will combine -- or try to combine -- the colors and characteristics of two different species or varieties.
How to Develop Seeds
In about a week, if the cross has been unsuccessful, seed pod and stem will begin to rot. If the hybridization has been successful, the seed pod will begin to swell after a couple of weeks, dropping beneath the water as it enlarges. Tie a string around the stem of the seed parent so you can pull it up and look at it occasionally. The enlarging seed pod becomes the "fruit" of the water lily. Two or three days before it is completely ripe, it will rise to the surface again. Finally, it will burst and scatter the seeds.
Water lily seeds are greenish-black or brown, some like tiny apple seeds, others as large as peas and almost globular. Some species and varieties produce only six or seven seeds; others, particularly among the Tropical species, produce ten times more. If the seeds had not been caught by the cheesecloth you fastened around the pod, they would have been kept afloat by a coating of colorless, mucilaginous matter. This is nature's way of allowing the seed to float away from the mother plant and establish itself in a new, less crowded place where it will have a better chance of survival. The buoyant matter dissolves in a few days and the seed drops to the bottom.