Thanks!

I had one Iris also overwinter and finally flower this spring.

One mini-cat tail also has done nicely.

Those are the ones that lived. I've had 2 other plants from lowes die.

I'd buy them if they are cheap. I'm pretty sure they have a warrenty on them anyway. Save your receipt, and if they die, replace them in the spring.

I made a holding place for them in a Kiddie pool.I spent about 2 weekends potting everything and placing them in the pond.
All have done well. I only bought plants that did not look dried up and were still in water.

One of the water lilies was a Mayla which is a gorgeous hot pink and I also bought pale pink ones.

I found it a great way to fill in the bare spaces in my pond.

So far, this year, the cheapest the water plants have been is 50% off. This year, Our Lowes bought less stock than last year.

I would also keep an eye on the clearance-rack "dying" plants, cause you never know what you'll find. One day I checked it out and it had several huge Cannas that had been marked down to pennies on the dollar. That was extremely tempting, but I didn't have a good place to stick any of 'em (the Black Knight was calling to me, but was just too big. If the pot had been a bit smaller, then I probably would've been forced to find a spot for it). I kept looking to see if maybe they would move their potted Colocasias to the rack, but I never did catch 'em if they did.

We have another local store, Meier's (kinda like Kmart or Target with a garden center) that had been advertising pond products on clearance, so I went in for curiosity's sake - only to find a huge rack full of all different types of plants that were busy out-growing their containers (Colocasia's, Canna's, Lily's, Rushes, Grasses, etc). They were still in the large-sized pre-packaged containers, but the tops had been taken off and most of the plants were growing just fine - snagged a discount Colocasia (Black Magic, I think) from here that's still going strong.

I also know from reading others experience that pre-packaged waterliles are often not labeled correctly and I also see many plants at mass merchants in general that aren't labeled correctly. I do care about knowing the correct names so this is a problem for me.