For people in cold climates, is it practical to over-winter tropical waterlilies, or is it better to treat them as annuals?
For the most part we recommend that tropical waterlilies be treated like annuals. However, they can be over wintered in cold climates. It’s just a bit more work. If you would like to attempt to over-winter them, then here’s what you need to do. Remove the pot from the water garden and remove the tropical waterlily from the soil. Rinse gently to remove any soil. Look closely at the bottom of the plant for a small, dark, round tuber anywhere from the size of a nickel to a fifty-cent piece (There may be more than one.). If a tuber is present, remove it by twisting. Clean the waterlily tuber and you can store it in one of two ways. If you have an aquarium you can place the tuber in a clean aquarium with no substrate. Give it 12 hours of light and heat the water to about 70 degrees. The tropical waterlily tuber will put up small leaves and remain this way until time to plant in the spring. Do not fertilize because you do not want to encourage growth. The other method is to store the tuber i
