Hi
I live in s. florida in the US so know a bit about heat lol
Mine are in an above ground 5x10x 3 foot pool..Gets over 6 hours but is some afternoon shade.. . I do have some type of worm that chews the pads resulting in some damage but pushes new pads so fast doesn't seem to bother it.
I do think it's important for the pads to have enough room to float as when the pads stack up the uppers tend to die rather rapidly. I grow only tropicals as I wanted blue flowers . "Blue goddess/ panama pacific and there really isn't room for more lol Have no experience with temperates though I suspect they would be more sensitive to heat?? Hope you solve the problem gary

Thanks Gary,

I bit the bullet and relocated the pot where it gets shade from the neighbours ficus in the afternoons. The water is cooler and the fish look happier, so I'm assuming the lilies will be too.
I think the issue here is the dry heat. We have been told that even though every online article and book says to put them in full sun, we need to grow our Lotus in the shade because they just scorch straight away. We have a very dry heat here, with extreme UV, so I think some shade is necessary. I noticed this morining that the gloriosa has sent up a bud, hopefully that is a sign that it's happier in its new spot.

Do you keep fish in the pond? Aapparently they help control those grubs.

" Caddis Fly and your water lily
Caddis Fly is a moth like creature whose larvae can cause great damage to water lilies. These larvae use pond debris and water lily stems to build cases in which they move around the pond, mostly at night. Generally the first sign of Caddis Fly infestation in your pond is the appearance of lily stems, leaves and flower buds that appear to be cut cleanly off the lily plant. If you head out to your pond at night with a torch you can often see the Caddis Fly larvae moving around the pond, they appear as moving sticks on the base of the pond and on lily stems. Once the Caddis Fly larvae reach this size they are usually too large for Goldfish to eat. The best way to control Caddis Fly is by keeping a good number of fish in your pond. If you have a small pond with small fish you may need to manually pull the Caddis Fly larvae from the pond."

Hi
For most of the ponds life(1981 ) have kep . tropical fish
mostlyt swordtails , tetras some barbs. A freak cold spell in 09 eended that ,so went to GF which I feared couldn't handle the heat but have done very well too well actually , have had to thin several times.
Anyway the lilies seem to make it through the bugs but does look terrible a couple months per year
What's a few bugs among friends ?? lol
Thanks for the info!! gary

You might have good success with a bowl lotus .

what is a bowl lotus?

Yup, hot midday sun will be too much for waterlilies where the sun can heat the water over 95ðf, both hardy and tropical waterlilies can go heat dormant.

Trop lilies tend to turn to mush and survive as tubers, hardies will quit flowering, send up smaller pads

Midday shade, or increasing surface coverage with floating plants can moderate water temps.

BTW lotus are less heat tolerant than waterlilies

Thanks sdavis,

I had not seen naything about heat dormancy until now. Makes perfect sense though. Just had a heatwave (2 days in excess of 43C/109.4F), but they seem to be ok. The shade is definately helping. Unfortunately my lotus which were under 70% shade cloth scorched in the heat.

Hi, I have a natural swimming pool in Spain, which doesn't work very well.

And am having trouble with water lilies, If anyone in say California or Australia have any advise I'd be very grateful. My lilies are in a depth of 40-60 cm of water. They are as said above shooting up small pads and fairly dormant considering the 7 years they've had to get it together! My quandary is- if I make they're area 1 meter deep (costly pa larva) will they work?

or is it the total lack of shade for 8-10 hours of the day? temperature here in the summer is 36-40 degrees c, water temp is usually around 10 degrees lower..

anyone have similar experiences? I have lots of water surface area...but can't get lilies big enough to shade themselves.

I mentioned California and Australia as I think both are zones 9-10 same as here.

It will probably depend a lot on which lilies you're growing. Some of my ponds in the summer have water running in (from a natural source) at temperatures of 30C to 32C, except during rain. At night it drops back to about 28C. Temperature at the bottom and in the soil around the tubers/roots would be lower. Deepest water is about 1 metre. The waterlilies are fine with all that. By the way, Australia has zones from 9 to 14, and a lot of different climates.

Thanks, I'm growing hardy lilies I bought in the uk- as we still get cold winters.

Sounds like sending them deeper is probably the answer then, at the depth they are now the sun still hits the soil so they are probably suffering.

I know Australia would have lots of different climates- big place, but as it starts at 9 I guessed I would get more relevant answers than advice from say the uk where they will grow in 30cm of water all day long.

Thanks for the fast answer, if you have anymore tips you can think of I'm all ears! =]

The sun hitting the bottom shouldn't really affect them. It's the same with how fish and tadpoles survive in heated water, lower down the water is cooler. Also, soil above tubers would insulate them further. I also have a natural swimming pool, only 30 metres across but enough for me. Waterlilies are growing in it from a depth of about 10 cms to 1.5 metres. They only get filtered sunlight but still flower quite well. Only thing is the leaves and flowers are small due to the lack of direct sunlight most of the day. The same species of waterlily in ponds out in full sun all day are larger. Waterlilies have evolved to live in wetlands with little or no tree canopy above them. As they're floating in water high air temperatures don't have much effect, what's more important is the intensity of the sun. And, as I mentioned before, tubers are well insulated.

Maybe I need to know what lilies you have planted then, as mine are in 40cm of water and are shooting up tiny pads, but not due to lack of light- they get intense light all day.

I gave the same lilies to a friend here, she has them at 1 meter deep - but in the shade- they have grown big.

She is telling me they need to go deeper, but hers aren't full sun and as I said they came from uk- where the uv is low anyway.

What are you growing?

Thanks Anna

One is Nymphaea 'H.C.Haarstick', red coloured and night flowering. At the moment I have one flowering in a new incomplete pond, in about 10 cms of water.

The other 2 are Nymphaea violacea and N. gigantea, both day flowering, but not at the moment. The N. gigantea is in a lot of shade and about 15 cms of water. Has sporadic very small flowers. I've put a seedling of it in the same pond as the red one where it'll get a lot of sun.

We're not fully into our rainy season yet so a lot of the pools where some of my waterlilies grow are still dry. Once they fill up the waterlilies in those will start to grow.

Would Nymphaea mexicana survive in your climate? It's considered a weed here, but I've seen it growing in very shallow water. Almost as a marginal. The emergent leaves actually look really nice.

The other option, dare I say it, is perhaps plant some trees to shade the edges in the afternoon.

or maybe interplant with taller marginals?

Here's a pic of my big water pot from today. I ended up havin to move the problem pot into a shady spot and planted it with Thalia.

hey sound great.

I have already planted as much as I can around the edges, but alas...no joy. Am considering other marginals instead of lilies they would have to be low ones though no more than 20cm high as anything taller would stop me being able to see it from the house, and of course they aren't oxygenaters so hope it still works.

So just to clarify- the mexican ones you mention- can they handle full sun? and do you have any luck growing from seed? as I have no idea how to lay my lands on them here.

Anna =]

We don't have the right pollinator, so they don't set seed in Australia.

Here you often find them in old farm dams and stormwater sumps, just grown from dumped rhizomes. Full sun and often shallow or even ephemeral. They also remain evergreen as winters are mild .

You might be able to find them online and have them shipped.

http://www.invasives.org.za/invasive-species/item/693-yellow-water-lily-nymphaea-mexicana.html

All of mine seed like crazy and produce lots of seedlings. And the seeds, in water, stay viable for a few years at least. One container I cleared of waterweed recently hasn't had waterlilies in it for a few years. Now that the sun is getting through to the bottom there's scores of seedlings that have started to emerge. They're the night flowering red one. If you check Ebay you'll often see the seeds for sale, mainly from Thailand.