If you plan to plant a number of water-lilies, it is a good idea to have soils and fertilizers mixed and containers collected, and perhaps even filled. The nurseryman will not send plants to you until the weather in your particular area is safe for setting them out. As I have said, growth will already have started. Plant as soon as possible after arrival as a safeguard against drying out, which might check new growth. Avoid exposure to sun. Even half an hour of it is harmful. If you cannot plant, open the box or package anyway, put the plants in a shady place, cover with a piece of wet burlap, and keep it wet.

The time you receive your order of hardy water-lilies will depend on where you live. If in Horticultural Zone 3, a broad band extending from New York to Chicago and points west, safe planting time will be about mid-April. If you live south of Zone 3, you can plant somewhat earlier; if you live north of it, you will plant later.

Time of shipment for hardy water-lilies will also depend on the judgment of your dealer. If there has been a late spring and summer is slow in getting underway, your dealer may not ship until well into May-comfortably beyond any possibility of a late killing frost.

The dealer will ship tropical water-lilies with the same safety factors in mind. If you live in Zone 3, you probably will get your tropicals around the first week of June. Your hardies, by that time, ought to be well started, but the tropicals make up for late arrival with a long sea-son. In mild winters, I have seen the tropicals blooming as late as the first week of December, long after the hardies have given up for the year.

PLANTING THE HARDIES

Planting is simplicity itself. Dry soil does not bind well, so wet the soil in the container so that you can press it snugly in around the root. Lay odorata and tuberosa type roots horizontally, an inch below the surface of the soil, with the growing tip extending above the surface. This tip may be only a sprout. It may be developing Bower and leaf stems a few inches long, or even up to 2 feet.

Place a Bat stone, as large as your hand, over part of the root to keep it submerged, but be careful not to touch the growing point. Cover the soil surface in the container with sand, finely crushed stone, or gravel, but keep this also away from the growing point. This top layer will keep goldfish from disturbing the soil and thus clouding the pool.

If the stems of the lily you arc planting are fairly well developed, set the container in the pool so that about a foot of water covers the crown. If the leaves lack an inch or so of reaching the water surface, don't worry about them. They will adjust themselves to their water depth within a few days

However, if growth has just begun to develop, prop up the container so that only a few inches of water cover the point. There the warmth of the sun will easily penetrate the water to stimulate growth. After a week or so, as stems and leaves develop rapidly, the plant can be dropped down to full depth.

Plant the pineapple-shaped Marliac roots perpendicular, with just the crown extending above the surface of the soil. Set them in the pool, near the surface if necessary, as you would odorata and tuberosa plants.