Watery delights
One of the reasons for adding the ponds to the garden was to be able to grow waterlilies (Nymphaea). Few plants have more beautiful flowers. They can seem a bit complicated at first what with the need for various water depths but they should not be considered difficult – as long as you have a pond! For that reason they are probably the most costly plants I have in the garden when you consider the expense needed to grow them in the first place. On the other hand at least it is difficult to overwater them!
The late Geoff Amos would always say, on the garden Q&A sessions we did for Garden News in the 1980s and 90s, that waterlilies are the most dangerous plants in the garden: you can die just by sitting under them.
As it happened, I bought mine from a specialist, even before I had ponds dug. They arrived as ‘cuttings’ by mail and were potted and kept in large water-filled containers, moved to the first, small pond for a year and then repotted and eight moved to the large pond. There they have been for five years now and although growth has not been impressive, they are all doing OK and some have escaped from the planting containers – how much depends on their growth habit, which varies.
How many flowers I get varies with the weather and the day. It is rare that all plants bloom at the same time. But I am happy for any flowers. Each one is beautiful. When choosing them I tried to get those that are fragrant but, as I took photos and leant over the pond, I realised the ridiculousness of this, almost drowning to try to get a close sniff! But I could detect the scent, wafting on a warm day. I always like the idea of picking the flowers and enjoying them indoors, but I have never done it – yet.
Today it was ‘Mayla’ that was the most lovely. Nymphaea are primitive in evolutionary terms, according to the graduation of the floral parts from sepals to petals to stamens, and intermediary petal/stamens can easily be seem in the flowers. But primitive does not mean unsightly. While there is a simple charm in the purity of white waterlilies (and I do have one), there are many coloured forms. There are even blue/purple hardy cvs now but they are outside my price range (blue nymphaeas are tropical in nature).
The waterlily that was obviously fragrant was ‘Carolina Sunset’, a vigorous, yellow with slight flushes of peach. It requires 60cm of water over the crown. My pond is about 80cm deep. If water depth for lilies is too great they can struggle to grow – to reach the water surface. If they are not deep enough they push their leaves above the water surface, making them more prone to aphid (usually blackfly) damage. Last year they were quite badly affected but, so far, this year they have been free from them. The water surface is busy with pond skaters so perhaps they eat them.
The best ‘grower’ of the batch, apart from ‘Mayla’ is ‘Wanvisa’ which has beautiful purple-flushed leaves and marbled flowers. It is happy in less deep water than the others and yet always pushes the flowers well above the water surface.
And ‘Peaches and Cream’ completes the four with good flowers today, a subtle combination of shades but too far from the pond edge for me to say if it is well scented.
Waterlilies are not just attractive, they are useful to shade the water and suppress algal growth. They also offer shelter for the fish.
The Biking Gardener 
We really should try these again. We tried six a few years ago. They were the most expensive small plants that we ever purchased. Embarrassingly, they did not survive for long. Now, I would be concerned about the koi eating them. The pond is there whether or not we do anything with it, so we try to make it look like an intentional landscape feature.
I do not have Koi in the pond but there are goldfish – I put in 4 and now there are about 50. They do sometimes stir up the roots but do not do much damage – the fish are fed regularly (3 times a day)
Goldfish are supposedly less destructive to aquatic vegetation. Minnows are even less destructive, and prevent mosquito infestation, but are not so pretty.
I have some waterlilies in a now disused pond (my goldfish, who’d been resident for about 12 years suddenly all died one year, never found out why) and they’re beautiful but I imagine if I cut off a flower (porcelain looking as they are), that it would immediately fold back into a bud as they do every night so there would be no point in trying to take it inside. Better to admire their beauty in the water. I obviously haven’t got the water depth right either as the now dinner plate sized leaves rise up a foot or more above the water level, but they are pristine & shiny. Nothing ever seems to eat them. Interestingly I bought my waterlilies in the early days of Lidl arriving in Ireland for €4.99 each & they’re all still here on the (north) west of Ireland coast.
It does sound as though the water is a bit shallow for them but apart from pushing their leaves above the water it is not a huge issue – better than too deep which causes the plants to struggle and die out. I have one that I think is a bit deep and it is very slow to get going – I need to lift it. I am glad your bargain did so well. I wonder what caused the death of your fish – that is a shame. Mine seem happy enough but I lose one of the biggest each year but I think that is through exhaustion after spawning – there is never anything obviously wrong with the one that dies and it is usually one that was swollen with eggs.