Free Victoria

       I had an unexpected delivery waiting for me when I go home last night.  What was in the box, a Victoria Lily. Normally we ship all our new lilies out of Florida but as luck would have it we have no more Victoria water lilies in Florida for 2009 so we are shipping some from a branch nursery. Apparently sent to my billing address and not the customer I now have a small Victoria water lily. It is my personal first experience growing one here in the north. Today I carted it over to my friends Greg and Marcia as they have a decent sized large pond but not one large enough for this lily.

Picture of someone elses grown victoria, can you see the pot extends almost as wide as the spread of the leaves...Leaves can grow to 6 or more feet across.

        The plant can grow easily in the summer basically in most of the country. That is not my problem. I have nothing to plant the lily in. Normal 2-5 gallon containers I would put in Greg and Marcia’s pond are much smaller than the plant would like. I will give her a few weeks. Hopefully here pads do not grow in the smaller container any where near as large as they could in the proper conditions. If they do it will overtake the pond with two lily pads. We may have to remove it but it will be fun to watch for a few weeks. I will take pictures if interesting to see how it grows in a few gallon container.