Rewilding My Lot

On a recent visit to Pollinatives in Converse (my favorite semi-local native plant nursery), I had a lucky find of their last two native waterlilies of the season — I wasn’t expecting to see these in stock until later in the year.

That purchase led to an unexpected and rather urgent pond session to get those plants cleaned up and in the water.

I bought one each of Banana Waterlily aka Yellow Waterlily (Nymphaea mexicana) and American White Waterlily (Nymphaea odorata). The yellow one had enough growing points that I split it into two as I repotted it — the separation had to be done gently as the delicate stems were intertwined.

For the repotting, I replaced the plastic pots from the nursery with fabric pots that are intended for pond plants (porous so that water and nutrients can pass through to the roots) and adding clay-based soil (which I have to buy because my own soil is sandy and too lightweight).

That yielded three new pots of waterlilies to add to the two that I already had in the pond. Before placing them in the water I hosed off excess algae. (I also hosed off my own legs before and after wading into the pond to place the new pots.)

In addition to these new waterlilies, a few days earlier I had been gifted two other pond plants from a friend who was splitting his stock. I believe them to be Whitetop Sedge (Rhynchospora colorata) and Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata). When I received them, I repotted them in a similar way to the waterlilies, but since they were placed closer to the edge of the pond I could install them without having to enter the pond myself.

So after all that activity, here are a few photos of the pond with its new plants. One of the new waterlilies is already blooming.