When does your waterlily need dividing?

• If the waterlily leaves stood up above the water last Summer.
• Waterlily leaves should lay flat on the water surface and not be bunched upright into a central mass.
• Last year that water lily plant was trying to tell you it needs to be divided
• It is too congested. Now is the time to do that job.
• If it is covering more than 70% of the water surface area you should divide a few pieces of rhizome away to keep it in check.
• Hopefully, you remember which plant needed work!
• Taking a photo last year helps you lift or prune the correct basket this Spring!

Repotting a Pond waterlily after dividing into smaller pieces:

• Spring this year has been very mixed but a waterlily in your pond should have started to send up 'rolled' or 'furled' leaves traveling to the water surface
• Act now before the stems get too long.
• If you can lift the waterlily basket you can replant it into a larger mesh basket with more aquatic clay soil.
• Remember to add an XL feed ball into a larger basket.
• Cut out congested rhizomes or  'crossed over rhizomes' or remove some if too many growing points are close together.
• Repot the pieces into new baskets. See our method in the video on the page in Tips and Advice.
• Space each new basket out around the pond to give better water coverage.
• You can leave some of the original plant rooted in place in the basket and replace this in the pond once you have removed some rhizome limbs to repot.

Pruning a Pond waterlily in the pond:

With a large, older water lily it may be easier to leave the basket in place and split out or 'prune' the rhizome growth using a sharp knife:

• Reduce the size and spread of the mature waterlily and repot the pieces as described in Tips and Advice.
• This is more successful than trying to lift a big plant out of the water.
• A waterlily is a hungry plant. Its roots will have grown through the mesh basket and across the base of the pond searching for nutrients.
• A waterlily root span will be as wide as its top growth spread on the water surface.
• This is what makes the basket heavy to lift and move.
• We detail 'Pruning a waterlily' by splitting it in the pond in our Tips and Advice pages.
• Use the pieces you cut off a mature plant to pot up to make more new young plants.
• Over time you will be able to replace the unmanageable mature plant with several of the new smaller baskets of repotted rhizomes.
• We advise not to allow a contractor to just 'clear it out for you' because of its size. you should work on what you have first.

Even after pruning you still want to cover 50% of your pond surface area in this coming season. Aim for 60-70% water coverage in the next few years.

• Do not expose too much water to the sunshine this year by radically reducing the size of your waterlily spread.
• Do not remove the mature plant altogether.
• Repot new baskets and put more than one in the pond while they mature.
• You can reduce the number of new baskets gradually once you have enough cover.
• Only work on one waterlily in a year if you have more than one that needs splitting.
• If you make too dramatic a change you will get green algae.

Miniature and dwarf waterlilies in 11cm square baskets will not need dividing or pruning like the larger pond waterlilies.

But these smaller waterlilies will benefit from a Feed balls for Aquatic plants now so that they get the nutrient to flower well this Summer.

For more detailed information on Maintaining your waterlilies please read our Tips and Advice pages.