if so, what variety’s do best?,
what other plants can i grow here?,
care in the winter?
water conditions?,
how big can they grow?
thank you very much

Yes, you can. water lilies grow anywhere there is water. I have seen water lilies at 12,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains. Get only hardy varieties, not tropicals. They will survive the winter with no care at all and return each spring bigger and better.
You can grow any hardy water plant. Look for natives that grow near you.

i would like to know if phytoremediation of Cr, Cu, Hg and Pb can be conducted with nymphaeaceaes or water lilies. thanks.

http://www.answers.com/topic/phytoremediation

http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?go_button.x=12&go_button.y=12&s=phytoremediation+water+lily

No; sea/salt water will kill them. They should be in fresh water only.

yes. Mostly in Asian countries. They are looked at as specific parts of the human anatomy, animal shapes, etc etc

I would like to buy a few lotus flowers but all i can find online are fake ones. Does anyone know where to buy water lilies or lotuses?

water lilies are available all over. Even Home Depot sells them. Try you local garden centers or greenhouses. Lotus are hard to find, but try places that specialize in water gardens. I don’t shop there much, but even ebay may have them.

Your home is your most private, personal space. You spend a lot if not most of your time there eating, sleeping and working, thus stamping an ordinary house with your moods and personality, making it more special and unique. Naturally, you want your home to look at its best. You want it to have a relaxing, inspiring atmosphere that you can’t find anywhere else.

Such an atmosphere can be achieved by placing flowers in your home. A pretty bunch of flowers can brighten up any room with a spot of color. Just looking at them can make any person lose the stress acquired during the day! There’s something about flowers that cheers people up, so why not take advantage of it by following these helpful tips on decorating your home with flowers?

1. Vases are not the only things that you can use for holding your flowers! Experiment with clay pots, china porcelain, crystal, steel, or glass bowls, cups, champagne glasses, teapots, water pitchers—the list is endless. Just make sure that the container is clean and polished to complement the beauty of the flowers you will be placing in them.

2. For wide, open spaces, use blooms that are big with loud colors such as hydrangeas, gladiolus, and lilies. Big flowers can easily catch attention in a large room. You don’t want the flowers to go unnoticed right?

3. Match the room’s decor with complementary or contrasting colors. If you want to introduce a soothing effect in a room, use flowers in colors such as blues and greens. For a warmer look, oranges and reds will do the trick. For a subtle arrangement, yellows and peaches are the best choice of colors.

4. How do you know which flowers go well with each other? There are no hard and fast rules, but you may want to choose just one type of flower for your bouquet (this is called a monobotanic arrangement) or one color with varying shades (called a monochromatic arrangement).

In decorating you home, be creative. You may be very busy to go out to buy flowers on the streets or in the malls, so you can opt to just have your flowers delivered. It’s easy—there are several flower shops online. One such service is Island Rose of the Philippines. They use an innovative delivery system that guarantees you to have the best roses fresh from the farm. Their flower delivery is fast, efficient, and stress-free. Flowers from Island Rose are also considered some of the best in the world. Why not start decorating your home with flowers now? It doesn’t have to be stressful when you can buy flowers with just one click of a mouse.

Timothy Spencer
http://www.articlesbase.com/interior-design-articles/decorating-your-home-with-flowers-724175.html

It is difficult to imagine a garden with only “greenery” around, and no colorful flowers! In fact, it would not really look like a garden at all–no beauty, no color, no fragrance! Thus, your garden can be made “complete” only with the help of either annual flower gardening or perennial flower gardening!

An annual flower is one which survives only for one growing season, that is, its life cycle is completed within one season. New seeds or seedlings have to be planted if you want the same flowers again.

Perennials, on the other hand, last for two years or more, sometimes even lasting for decades. They do not have to be re-grown from seeds or seedlings. As they come back year after year, they keep growing in strength and becoming healthier.

I would like to caution you that perennial plants are costlier than annual flowers. But the advantage is that once these perennial flowers become members of your garden, they establish themselves permanently. Long-term, you do save on costs since you do not need to purchase new plants or seeds year after year!

Here are some features of perennial flower gardening–

(1) Before you actually begin your garden, do some research on the huge range of perennial flowers available (In fact, it is as if nature has made sure to cater to everyone’s tastes!), so that you can narrow down your choices to those that you ultimately wish to grow.

(2) There are perennial plants that require full sunlight. Some of them are–yarrow (variety of colors); extremely fragrant peonies that survive from late spring to early summer; also blooming in late spring to early summer is the bearded iris, so called because of the white beard attached to its cornflower-blue petals; the perennial sage grows beautiful lavender-coloured flowers; and trumpet-shaped, beige-pink daylilies with their lime throats.

(3) In contrast to the above-mentioned plants, there are some that can survive in semi-shaded areas, while others do not mind living in an area with total shade. Again, conduct a search and find out!

(4) Another important thing concerning perennial plants, is the exact blooming time for different kinds of flowers. Since each flower blossoms at a different time of the year, your perennial flower gardening is going to result in a breathtaking vista of vibrantly-colored flowers that you can delight in the whole year through!

(5) Just to give you an idea, here are some of the flowers you can grow. The growing season can be heralded with the planting of bluebells, bleeding hearts and rock cress. Candytuft, peonies, bell flower, oriental poppies, false indigo, leopard’s bane and columbine should do for late spring. Many times, these grow in summer as well. For mid-summer to late summer colors, choose stonecrop, mountain bluet, garden lilies snow-in-summer and violet sage. Finish off late summer and fall with goldenrod, mums, aster, black-eyed susans, blue leadwort, plaintain lily, boltonia nad purple coneflower.

(6) Where soil is concerned, it should have a good mix of sand and clay. The ground should be tilled to at least one foot in depth. The soil should have the quality of draining well. This type of soil is good enough for a majority of the perennial plants. There are some plants that can survive in acidic or alkaline soils too. In general, these flowers manage to survive even in not-so-ideal places.
For instance, while peonies grow in moderately moist places, the yarrow can survive with poor soil conditions.

(7) You could also check out each flower’s resistance to diseases. For instance, daylilies are extremely resistant to pest infestations and diseases.

(8) These plants are not easy to grow from seeds, though seeds are available. An easier way to begin your perennial flower gardening is to borrow (divide) a part of an existing plant, either from your neighbor or friend. Your money is safe in your pocket, plus the original plant becomes even healthier by obtaining adequate nutrients and water after the division.

(9) Which are the best seasons to divide the plants? As the first growing season comes to an end, the foliage and flowers wither up and die. The roots survive with the help of the food stored in them. They will ensure the re-growth of these plants in the coming season. Therefore, dividing is essential for this type of gardening.

Those flowers that come back in mid-summer to late summer can be divided during the spring season. Early fall is the time to divide plants that will bloom in spring. A few experts suggest dividing early spring plants as soon as they flower, giving the plant strength to survive till next spring.

(10) Once a plant has been divided, it has to be planted in the soil. The best time for perennial flower gardening is spring or fall seasons, since the weather is humid and cool. Of course, those plants growing in containers can be transplanted whenever you feel like doing so. Water is an essential requirement for all plants.

(11) Perennial flower gardening includes maintenance too. Faded and dead flowers have to be removed. Large flowers like peonies and roses can be just cut off, while plants having many stems with blooms need shearing.

(12) Deadheading should become a regular practice. For one, your garden looks neater. Secondly, you are allowing plants to conserve their energy to put forth many more flowers instead of forming seeds. Otherwise, there is haphazard reseeding and your garden looks totally disorganized. You will end up spending more and more time in your garden than indoors!

After all this, your perennial flower gardening may not turn out to be a huge success in the very first growing season! Have patience! The plants may not have attained full maturity as of yet, and so are taking their time to bloom. Just remember, your wait will be well worth it!

Abhishek Agarwal
http://www.articlesbase.com/gardening-articles/perennial-flower-gardening-12-tips-to-have-beauty-all-year-round-753782.html

I got plants that are just planted in gravel. Are lilies the same or do I need soil?

You can plant water lilies in any medium at all. Gravel is fine as is sand, or even rockwool. Feed them every 10 days after the lowest temps in your area are over 55º. Do not feed them before then. Place the pot on the bottom of the pond, at least 18" below the water surface.

a.a limiting factor
b.the carrying capacity.
c.a competition factor.
d.none of the above
*please answer this question fast, it’s urgent*.

a

We bring some of these expert tips for you to grow your own garden and plant it with a variety of flowering and non-flowering plants, whatever your choice, with the end result of having a thing of beauty in your private space! After all, whether you live in the country or the city is not as important to growing your garden successfully, if only you know how to utilize your space – little or big – properly and also use your time to plant the right bulbs at the right time as with a little effort and reading, you can use these workable tips for gardening to have the best blooms in the neighborhood! Now, who doesn’t want to be the envy of the locality?

So, when there is so much variety to choose from in planting your garden – hundreds of different types of flowers, herbs, veggies, fruit and shrubs and greens etc to choose from – why shouldn’t you just give gardening a shot? You never know – you could just surprise yourself with the results of the gardening effort! Of course, you do need to determine which plants need to be sowed in which season and the kind of gardening project you can take on as a beginner (a kitchen garden, smallish potted plants, herbs and single pot-veggies/fruit are a good idea for beginners) and curtail your garden space to a limited one till you are confident of the kind of results you can generate for your garden with regular tending.

Planting edible plants is a good idea as it sustains the cooking too and is economical for the homeowner besides ensuring the freshness and nutrient-rich value of the home-grown veggies or fruits; you can line most of these with compatible herbs. Some varieties of edible plants that grow well in home-gardens are corn, potato, cucumbers, squash, peppers, carrots and lettuce besides pears, plum, tomatoes, cherries and strawberries.

Herbs take very little space to grow and are always great to give a spicy, different and savory touch to baking or crock-pot cooking even, so try growing fragrant ones for your salads, breads and sauces – good choices include sage, dill, mint, chives and parsley.

Some perennials that grow with little effort include the Christmas rose and the Japanese Anemone while good choices for spring flowers are violets and daffodils. Summer flowers like lilies, roses and dahlias brighten up the home-garden beautifully, too!

You can also opt for decorative Monkey grass and shrubs like roses to beautify your private garden and these act as privacy retaining screens too! The purpose of your gardening plants is something you can determine – whether it is beauty, usefulness, privacy, prize-winners or just something that is a fulfilling hobby for you, but the fact remains that you do need to learn up the basics of gardening to have a great garden year round. Some of these basic gardening tips include knowing the source of energy for yoru plants comes from sunlight, water and nutrients so give them at least 4-6 hours of sunlight daily, regular watering and balanced potting soil and fertilizer mix. You must also ensure timely pruning and removing of dead-heads to ensure the plants have clean surroundings to grow in and provide adequate drainage (place a tray lined with clean gravel under the plant container) for extra water to leak out for your plants to grow well.

Abhishek Agarwal
http://www.articlesbase.com/gardening-articles/gardening-plants-plant-your-way-to-bliss-753691.html