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Indoor Water Plants |
Under good conditions tender water-lilies will often flower
throughout the winter. Since the cost of maintaining the right
winter temperature is rather high, tender water-lilies can be
brought into a dormant condition in the autumn by reducing
the heat. This leads to the dying off of the foliage and
once this happens, the tubers can be lifted from the water and
dried off in a similar way to dahlias. Subsequently remove old
roots and foliage remains and store in a vermin-proof place in
moist sand where the temperature never drops below fifty-five
degrees Fahrenheit during the winter.
One or two of the tender tropical nymphaeas can be grown
outdoors in warm sheltered positions during the summer and
sometimes, particularly where the water is not very deep, so
that the heat of the sun more easily reaches the tubers, they are
a real success.
In such cases, however, there is insufficient warmth for the
tubers to become firm and 'ripen' so that they rarely last more
than one year under these conditions, which means they have
to be replaced annually, which can be an expensive item.
These water-lilies are, of course, cultivated much more
widely in warmer countries than ours and although it would
be possible to give a long list of good named sorts, there would
be little value in doing so, in a handbook of this type. We will,
therefore, refer to just a few of the species and varieties more
suited to this country.
Nymphaea amazonum usually flowers at night, its yellowish-
white flowers being sweetly scented.
TV. coerulea also has scented blooms which appear at night.
They are a beautiful sky-blue colour and really large.
TV. capensis is often referred to as the blue water-lily. Apart
from the sky-blue colour of the type, there is a dark blue form
known as zanzibariensis.
TV. dentata has pure white flowers which are sometimes as
much as a foot in diameter.
TV. flava or Mexicana has pretty star-shaped flowers of a
lovely canary-yellow, the outer petals being stained red.
TV. polychroma is bright blue, slightly tinted mauve. Con-
trary to nearly all other species, it has rhizomes which grow in
a more or less horizontal position.
TV. rubra is a rare species with bright red flowers which are
anything from six to nine inches in diameter.
TV. stellata is a really beautiful species which freely produces
its sky-blue scented flowers. It will flower outdoors in favour-
able situations but must be taken inside for the winter.
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