Thus far we have been speaking of planting soil and fertilizer as materials to be brought together on the day of planting. If you can prepare the soil ahead of time, you will not only make planting a more leisurely job, but you will also provide better plant food for your lilies.

The best compost is started in the fall. Use the same good heavy garden soil, six parts to one part of fresh cow manure, and place the compost bed under a shed roof, where rain and sun won't hit it directly; or, if it must be outside, cover with boards, linoleum, or other water-shedding cover.

Layer the materials, an inch of manure to six of earth, and turn the mixture with a spade about every six weeks. Turn it again just before you use it. Bone meal, a double handful to each cubic foot of soil, makes another good compost. Turn it the same way.



Hardy water-lilies come from the dealer in one of two forms-a piece of rootstock with growing stems, leaves, and probably a bud or two, or just a piece of rootstock. (See Drawing 22.)



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Rootstocks are of three kinds. Those of the odorata species are long, fleshy rhizomes, earth colored, with the size and shape of a 6- to 8-inch section of broom handle. Eyes, like potato sprouts, occur every few inches along the root. The eyes develop into new plants. Rootstocks of the tuberosa species are of similar size and shape, but are covered with spines like those on an alligator pear, and the stems are hairy. Both species propagate by sending up new plants from eyes along the roots. If left alone for many years, roots grow to 3 feet or so. In your pool, roots will lengthen enough in a year or two for you to cut off sections which will soon make nice new plants for your friends.

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The rootstocks of the Marliac Hybrids, most of them crosses with odorata or tuberosa varieties, or both, form a tight perpendicular tangle, crowned by a single growing point. As the mass grows larger and larger it produces additional growing points, and thus the Marliacs propagate themselves. A water-lily of this type may be about the size of a small pineapple when first set out. Two or three years later, if undisturbed, the plant may have a dozen growing points with a root area of bushel-basket proportions.