tropical lilies without new starts ?

[charlotteda]

Last year I overwintered my tropicals by taking a new baby plantlet from each pot.  This year... I do NOT have a baby on Green Smoke or Electra.  I've had pretty good luck with tubers from Electra but I hate to lose my Green Smoke.  Cant hardly take a gallon size root ball and put it in a small pot to fit in the aquairum.  Does anyone have any suggestions ?

[maryvonne]

That's the problem I have with my tropicals too. I can overwinter the vipips or the small tubers but don't have much luck overwintering the main plants. I do bring them into the basement into large tubs under a MH lamp but very few survive.

Maryvonne

[andrew davis]

When the cold takes all the foliage off the plant you might find everything dies back to a tuber or two close to where the roots were...

Otherwise you are into lifting the whole plant before the frosts, trimming off the bulk of the foliage and roots and trying to nurse it in a bucket of water indoors.

That is not so bad if you have a well lit window or strip light you can put over them, if you set it to grow semi dormant in a 6" pot of clay/loam, you may find an indoor grown plant limps along making quite a few tubers through Winter.

You might find a cold frame over a small dug in tub of water is just enough to keep tropical waterlilies ticking over through Winter as far South as you are, with good sun on a frame you may find that is just enough to keep the tubers ticking over all Winter

Regards, andy
http://www.members.aol.com/abdavisnc/swglist.html

[charlotteda]

Thanks Andy...that could be a possibility.  To "make" the plant tuber during early winter. I am a little farther south than you but I am up near the SC/NC mountains and can get dang cold here.