By Meerkat
United Kingdom 
Hello, I have too many water lilies in my pond and the leaves have become too large and grow almost upright. I want to reduce the amount of plants while I give the pond a clean out in Autumn (do this approx 5 yearly). I find the baskets with the soil etc. in too heavy to lift, would it be really bad if I just planted them direct in some soil st bottom of pond so that I just had to lift the plants out in the future.
14 Jul, 2010
Answers
You don't even need to plant the water lilies in soil at all Guest, you can just anchor them with a weight of some description and the level you want them to be. If you have soil in the bottom of the pond how are you gonig to deal with when you clean the pond out?
14 Jul, 2010
Hi, thanks for the responses to my question about water Lilies, Moon Grower would you please confirm that I don't need ANY soil to frow my lilies and can this method be used for other pond plants. Also I thought I would just scoop out the soil/silt in the future like I do now after removal of baskets. Any downside to the soil less method for my newts etc. Thanks again.
14 Jul, 2010
well ya newts will like plants .theres a few plants normaly with like a big chunky root incuding a lilly meerkat that can be just cut into pieces with buds on and know soil just tied to a weight as moongrower sais . some you can breal like water cress and it just grows .theres all sorts .a lot of floating ogyhinaters you can just break up to make new plants .
15 Jul, 2010
Hi Meerkat yes my understanding is you do not need soil for plants in water. All you need is something to anchor them gravel, rocks anything that will keep them in position. You could actually experiment with still having them in a pond basket but using gravel. Whilst the soil absorbs a lot of water the gravel doesn't and you will be able to have in a much smaller basket. I doubt it will worry your newts as there will still be a build up of silt over the years. Oh and yes the same method can be used for other aquatic plants.
15 Jul, 2010
if you have koi carp gravel is know good as they siphen the gravel through there gills and spread it everywear.
15 Jul, 2010
How can they do that if it is in a pond basket NP?
15 Jul, 2010
well lilly baskets have open tops for putting gravel on and for planting lillies etc . carp pick it up in there mouths and spit it out there gills . a carp has its teath effectivly in its throat . it has 2 plates that it grinds snails etc with in there throat . they pick up gravel looking for food .
15 Jul, 2010
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advertise.
You could sell some of the plants at a decent price but dont over price
14 Jul, 2010