dead heading water lilies

by Bob Stewart
(Portland, Oregon)

This is my first year with water lilys. They are blooming well. Should I be dead heading them to promote more flowers and avoid decay of the old bloom in my pond or is it a benefit to the plant to leave it on?


Doug says there is absolutely no benefit to leaving the spent blooms on a waterlily. Once they stop opening up and start decaying, you *can* fish them out of the pond/cut the stem and remove them.

But...

Having said that - this can be difficult if your pond is large enough that you can't reach the plants. :-) You don't have to wade to do this because the plants will be fine with the spent blooms decaying on the plant.

They'll simply sink to the bottom along with the rest of the decaying material and you'll have to clean them out along with the rest of the gunk in the fall or very early spring.