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Planting The Garden PondControlling GrowthFertilizersCompostWhen to PlantPlanting the Tropicals>Planting in Shallow WaterMost professional growers, who can raise and lower the level of their natural-type ponds at will, prefer to plant directly on the bottom through 3 or 4 inches of water. You can plant this way in any pond shallow enough for you to touch bottom with your hands. Sink the head of your shovel at an angle into the mud floor and pry up a wedge of soil. Place the lily root in position beneath the wedge, pull out the shovel, and press the wedge firmly over the root with your foot.
Some water gardeners who plant in shallow water make sure of setting out roots in just the right position, and with a good supply of food for the start by binding each root with its earth ball inside a section of sad. First trim the grass close. Then cut the sad 6 to 8 inches wide, twice that long, and 5 or 6 inches thick. Make a sandwich with the two pieces of sod placed grass side out and the lily root between like a hot dog. The growing point should be barely exposed at the top. Use cloth tape to bind the sods, for string or wire quickly cuts through turf. Wade to the planting site with the bundles of sod and roots, hold the bundles under water until they are water soaked, then set them in place and leave. For such free and natural planting as this, use only the Marliac-type water-lilies. Forms of odorata and tuberosa turned loose on their own would soon take over the whole pond. Tropicals, of course, can be planted freely anywhere since they will not live over the winter in most places. If they do survive, then growth will not get out of hand, except, of course, in the tropics. It happens now and then in the Canal Zone and the West Indies.
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Planning Your Pond |
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