The WaterlilyBear's Small Pond Water Gardening Guide

Your Waterlily Small Pond Guru

The Waterlily Bear shares a lifetime of wisdom on how to grow water lilies, lotus, and other aquatic plants in containers on your patio or in your back yard without the hassles of digging your own pond. Tub water gardens let you explore and enjoy the unique and colorful world of an outdoor mini pond and all of it's plants and critters at a low-cost, with easy maintainence. Here's what I offer:

Planning you container water garden
Help choosing tub water garden plants
Tips on planting and pond maintenance
Assembling a water gardening toolkit
How-To manage fish, snail & critters
Advice on disease, pest & algae control
Video Tutorials & Live Streams on Social Media

Aquatic Plant Recommendations

I'll help you find the best pond plants and water lilies to get started. Many bare-root waterlily tubers^#Ad and bog plants are available for order online. For more advanced water gardeners, specialized aquatic plant nurseries around the USA can help you source specific, named cultivars of hybrid waterlilies and bog plants that you've seen in photos and want to try in your own ponds.

Growing Waterlilies Made Easy

A 1, 2, or 3 gallon planting pot of heavy, mucky black dirt is all that's needed to make your water garden plants flourish and bloom. Give them at least 4-6 hours of direct, full sunight each day. Once the lily tuber sends several lilypads floating across the water garden's surface, flowering buds will soon follow. Both day-blooming hardy waterlily rizhomes and day or night-blooming tropical waterlily tubers can be explored given the right combination of sun exposure and water temperatures unique to your area.

Grow Your Own Sacred Lotus

Quick to sprout, mixed-color lotus seeds^#Ad - either pink, red and white Asiatic lotus (Nelumbo Nucifera), or native yellow American lotus seeds (Nelumbo Lutea) can be started in a bowl of water on a sunny window sill. Soon, they'll send out floating leaves and be ready to pot in dirt and be placed in an outdoor container watergarden.

Bog & Marginal Pond Plant Recommendations

Add height, color, leaf-texture, visual interest, and variety to the waterlilies in your container water garden with marginal bog plants to grow alongside them. Add floating pond plants^#Ad to add even more appeal.

How-To Water Garden Books

Select book titles dedicated to the world of waterlilies and backyard ponds can help in your aquatic tub gardening adventures. Many botanical and horticultural watergarden specific books exist. The Waterlily Bear's water gardening book recommendations^#Ad can help inspire open and expand your knowledge of this unique style of gardening.

Learn More About Backyard Mini Ponds

With easy, compact and affordable products to build your own backyard container tub watergarden, you can enjoy the diverse world of aquatic plant cultivation with minimal investment and space reqirements for your mini lilypond.

I'm your small-space water gardening expert documenting what container setups, aquatic plants and maintenance strategies actually work to create a beautiful, colorful and thriving compact water garden feature that is a focal point of your outdoor living space.

Apartment/Condo dwellers with balconies
Homeowners with sunny patios or porches
Renters who can't install in-ground ponds
Beginners intimidated by large pond complexity
Anyone wanting water garden beauty & serenity

Water Gardening Tips, Tools & Tricks

Throughout the site, The WaterlilyBear will provide mini-pond insights, plant recommendations and How-To tips. I'm here to help you have an informative and satisfying exploration of the management and successful growing of water-loving plants in your own outdoor living spaces.

Water Gardening Organizations and Resources

For a deeper dive into ALL aspects of the horticultural details of water gardening and plant hybridization, start with IWGS - The International Water Gardening Society. They are one of several global centers for waterlily and lotus plant descriptions, photos, botanical science, and listings of all the Award-Winning waterlily hybrids that have been developed over the past 150+ years. The UK's RHS - Royal Horticultural Society is also a great resource for water gardening enthusiasts!

Tub Water Gardening Tips