Well, the water plant potting mix is really expensive. Its about $7 for a bag only large enough to do ONE water lily. Rediculous. I only paid $5 for the plant.

So I pulled out my pond books and it said I could use plain clay kitty litter. Anyone ever done this? Is it a good idea? Will it affect the pH of my water?

I am having trouble finding the stuff, really.

Any other suggestions for potting up water lilies and aquatic plants besides the commercially packaged aquatic plant substrate? Its just too darn expensive.

Shane on Applesnail.net uses the plain kitty litter in his pond, and he swears by it. I've never done it though..... guess I'm a tad bit leery of it clouding up my water and being a huge breeding ground for anaerobic bacteria.

i bought a water lily kit and an arum lily kit and potted them up last night, i lined the basket with hessian, the arum lily didn't have any soil just wood shavings, some sort of potting media that went on top of the shavings and then was toped with fine gravel, the water lily was the same only it had a very small amount of aquatic soil...i was suprised at how little it needed!

i have started them in buckets of water to get them a head start while i finish digging the pond!

i bought a water lily kit and an arum lily kit and potted them up last night, i lined the basket with hessian, the arum lily didn't have any soil just wood shavings, some sort of potting media that went on top of the shavings and then was toped with fine gravel, the water lily was the same only it had a very small amount of aquatic soil...i was suprised at how little it needed!

i have started them in buckets of water to get them a head start while i finish digging the pond!

Plain Kitty litter is crushed Fullers Earth. It will work. Rinse it well. It's very similar to this http://www.watergarden.org/s.nl/category.146/it.A/id.448/.f with lower quality control.

You shouldn't have a problem with anaerobic bacteria, especially if you use cloth pots. http://www.watergarden.org/s.nl/category.27/it.A/id.913/.f

I have no clue what hessian is. Ill have to look that one up. I have heard of Fullers Earth. We may even have it at the feed store, Id have to look. Where can you normally find stuff like that? Maybe at a home improvment store? I rarely have time to go look around so if you guys can point me in the right direction I can make a few calls and run up and get some on Sunday, hopefully. Id really like to get those lilies potted up because they are just sprouting like crazy and the roots are starting to grow out of the net bag it came in.

Jeez, I can't imagine having that much trouble finding plain kitty litter!! I get it for the ferrets at the grocery store, or Wally World. The stuff at Wally World is called "Special Kitty" and it's in a red bag.

[I have no clue what hessian is. Ill have to look that one up. I have heard of Fullers Earth. We may even have it at the feed store, Id have to look. Where can you normally find stuff like that? Maybe at a home improvment store? I rarely have time to go look around so if you guys can point me in the right direction I can make a few calls and run up and get some on Sunday, hopefully. Id really like to get those lilies potted up because they are just sprouting like crazy and the roots are starting to grow out of the net bag it came in. biggrin.gif]

Hessian is a coarse woven material (sack type material) i read somewhere that it helps reduce the discoluration of pond water when adding potted plants!

Ill have to look at nnnnnn. I havent checked there yet, honestly. Ill look for a red bag. How much do you usually pay for it? Just curious. I wont get to go to the store until Sunday so just wondering. Im sure its better than 7 bucks for a teeny bag of aquatic plant soil, thats for sure.

Ok now I think I know what hessian is. Dont know where Id find it, but I think the kitty litter might be easier to find.

Gia, the cat litter is extremely cheap. I bought 2 big bags for about 5 bucks, but they were marked down cuz there was holes in 'em. Shouldn't be more than like 3 or 4 dollars a bag, and it's a sizeable bag. Just make sure it's plain litter, not scoopable or anything like that.

You want a traditional clay litter, no "clumping" litter, no perfumes. Traditional cat litter is granulated Fuller's earth. Fuller's earth is actually a catchall term for a chemically diverse set of absorbent clay minerals capable of absorbing their weight in water.

Check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_litter#...entional_litter

I found the red bag! It says its just plain ground up clay. ONly about $2 a bag! I grabbed two bags and I also bought 6 plastic basket-type pots. I really wanted the fabric kind, but they were too expensive so I guess these will have to do.

I was wondering, do I need to do anything to the kitty litter before adding it? Like does it need to be rinsed or does it need to sit or anything before potting the lily and putting it in the pond?

Yeah, you've got to rinse, rinse rinse. Kitty litter is soooooooooo dusty.

I was at Wally World today, and saw the bag and thought of you, hehe. Yeah, it's like 2.20 a bag or something like that.

On a side note, Gia, have you ever tried those lillies that you can buy in a box? I've seen them at WMRT, and I ended up buying one at Petsmart today. It's $6, and comes with the plant, barely sprouted, in a mess of roots and potting material. They came with fertilizer too. I think the brand was "Top Fin". It's a red lilly. I got it set up this afternoon.

That is what I got! I got them from nnnnnn for like $6 or so. Yeah they only had about 2 or 3 teeny sprouting leaves on there when I first got them. I cant believe how fast they grew! Oh I bet a red one will be really pretty! I didnt see any red when I looked before. Ill have to look at petsmart but I dont think they have red either. Just yellow, pink and white I think. Mine are yellow and pink. They came in a net sort of thing with this mossy medium in there and some gel type stuff, I guess for moisture or food. I want to see photos of that red lily when it gets some flowers! Hopefully mine will flower the first year. I heard they dont sometimes. My pond will be in full sun so hopefully they will.

OH good!! I"m glad to hear that they actually grow. Yeah, I got the red since it was something I hadn't seen before, they look like they'll be really pretty if and when they bloom. Of course I'll take pics if it does. Are lillies pretty fast growing? I'm thinking about getting some duckweed for the pond too.

You are very smart to go with the kitty litter (and as was said once before if anyone is coming in late, plain litter no perfumes or clumping it'll kill the fish). The kitty litter is close to the same thing as koi clay, which can be expensive. Koi clay helps to get rid of string algae. I've never used the kitty litter in my pond but hopefully you'll get the added benefit of it by not having string algae.

Scott

Well I got impatient and potted up the lilies tonight even though the pond is not installed. THe lilies were looking too cramped in that 12 gallon pot, so I filled the pond halfway so I could keep them in there until the deck is done and we can install the pond.

Erika, I got mine about 2 months ago probably and they looked like this.

I just took these tonight after potting them to show you how big they are so you can see how fast they grow. Here is one plant. I put my hand there so you can see the approximate size. Here is another shot. This is the other lily. As you can see this one has redish markings on the leaves where the other one is solid green. I have no clue which one has the pink flowers and which one has the yellow. The indicators fell off, lol! So it will be a surprise I guess. I potted up some anarchis also. It has been doing very well in that little flower pot I had them in. Very heatly, green and lush. I love them. I just had them floating in the pot. Some had fallen to the gravel and rooted there, I thought that was neat..so Im pretty sure they will make some nice roots in this pot. I may just let the others float around.

That clay stuff is MESSY! Yuck! As you can see it made the water a bit murky. THere is alot of dust on the bottom. I rinsed that stuff out for about 15 minutes and it still ran the water a nasty thick greyish color. I got tired of rinsing and just scooped the stuff out and slapped it in the pot. It didnt make the water in the pond as bad as I thought, actually. I added a few water plant fertilizer tabs and placed small river stones on the top just to keep the stuff in place.

Thanks for all the help and comments guys. I hope these lilies do well like this.

The one on the left with the varigated (spotted) leafs looks like a lemon chiffon lily (yellow flowers). Don't know what the other one will be.

Don't worry about the cloudy water much. After you get a good filter up and running it should clear up .

Looks exciting.

well if you know that one is yellow then the other is pink. I know the colors, just not what plant will produce which colors. So that would be pretty, yellow flowers with pink and green leaves! I kind of thought that one would have the pink flowers.

Im not worried about the water at all at this point. I just wanted to get the lilies out of that little pot because it was just too cramped. It will probably be at least another two weeks before this is done. My husband and I just work so much. Both of us work about 10-14 hours a day, 5 or 6 days a week so its hard to find time. Im soo anxious to get it done, but on our day off we just feel like resting! Lol. Oh well, it will get done...eventually.