Unable to grow water lillies in soft water

by Lisa
(Waco, Texas)

I've successfully grown water lillies in hard water - Austin, Texas, but am having very little luck growing them in soft water. I feed them monthly and the leaves and flowers are small and they are not growing in size. The pond gets full sun and is 18" - 2' deep. I live in Waco, Texas. The plants have been in the water over 2 years.

Any help you can provide is appreciated.

Doug says that water lilies thrive in water which has a pH between 6.0 and 7.0 If your water is outside of that range, then your plant is indeed likely to struggle.

Your option is to have a water test done and then modify the water pH with the appropriate material to bring it to that range. There are water "uppers" and "downers" that do this increase or decrease acidity.

But do get the test and then modify accordingly if you really want to be able to grow this plant. As an added bonus, after you modify your water pH, you're going to find other water plants grow better too.

Hope this helps.