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I bought some pond plants from eBay (they shipped in a plain envelope surrounded by wet paper towels with padding!) in early June because I couldn't find anything but lillies at the local stores here. Some have been doing great, and some not! I love the water hyancyth and the lettuce, pictured left. They have expanded to about 5 times their size in the two months.

The water poppy and the red ludwiga, on the other hand, have not fared so well. The ludwiga is slightly larger than when I got it, and the poppy keeps having yellow leaves and is not really growing, it has increased only slightly in size.

I know that the former are "floaters" and the latter were planted in soil, could this be the problem? Or, are the hyancith and water lettuce just more hardy? I placed a few on my hyancith into my bio-filter planter and they have grown UPWARDS, looking very healthy. These are even the most healthy of my hyancith right now.

In general, I am happy with all of my plants. I am hoping to overwinter them, but if they do not survive, I will be buying more of the hyancith and water lettuce for next year. They float over the top of my mechanical filter and cover it completely for a more organic look. I spent about $30 for all my pond plants, not including the lillies. I got 3 each of hyancith and water lettuce, another 3 ludwiga and 3 poppy. ALL the ludwiga and poppy are pictured here, while you only are seeing 1/2 of my hyancith/water lettuce collection.

I bought 2 containers of waterlilies at Menards for $9.99 each in the spring and plopped them into the pond. This is the first time I have attempted to populate my pond with plants - last year when the pond was built it was late July and far too late to do much. The only pond plants I could find around here (Indiana!) were the waterlilies.

At the beginning of June, leaves finally grew and then by the middle of June I had waterlilies! One is pink (the box said red), while the other is white. The white one has much smaller leaves and flowers, while the pink one just looks amazing. The buds open up during the day but close when it gets too hot in the late afternoon and also through the night...so you have to know their schedule to take photos!

It is now the end of July and they are no longer flowering. I think I should add a packet of fertilizer, although it says there was one included already in the buckets. They are hardy lillies so I will attempt to over-winter them. I am not sure how to do this yet. They were definitely an asset to the pond this year, the most beautiful flowers in my entire backyard!