- Type: Hardy ISG
- Size: Medium
- Depth: 40-80 cm
- Flower type and colour: Pink flower
- Space required: 1.2-1.6 metres
- Flowering: Very free-flowering
- Characteristics and comments: Among the most free-flowering of the pink ISG varieties, hybridised using hardy and tropical plants, and winner of the award for best ISG waterlily in 2017. The flower rises out of the water like a tropical waterlily.
Hardy ISG waterlilies: ISG waterlilies are grown simply like any hardy waterlily. I buy the rhizome, prepare a pot of suitable size with heavy, clayey soil, and plant the waterlily rhizome, firming the soil so that the rhizome does not come out of the pot. I then place it inside the tub or pond and set it on the bottom.
These are waterlilies that can be placed at depths of 30-50 cm. They can also be put in deeper water, but they struggle more to grow and to flower. Having tropical blood, they begin to grow and develop later than hardy ones.
This type of waterlily needs more nutrients than ordinary hardy waterlilies, so good fertilisation with Pondtabbs is strongly recommended and gives fantastic results in the number of flowers produced and the healthy growth of the plants.
ISG waterlilies are not like the classic hardy ones that I can leave in place for years without dividing them: while hardy waterlilies can survive even in poor conditions, ISG waterlilies may die if they are not divided often (at least every two or three years).
The mother plant that grows in the first year may not survive the following year, so it is good for these plants to produce small offsets from which the new plants for the next year will develop. These small plants, if correctly fertilised and transplanted, grow extremely fast, and from a tiny rhizome I will have a lovely flowering plant within a month.
To grow at their best, these plants need prolonged, direct sunlight.
They are waterlilies created by crossing hardy waterlilies with tropical waterlilies. This union produces waterlilies that have the hardiness of hardy waterlilies and characteristics such as the colours, shapes and fragrance of tropical waterlilies. They can comfortably survive outdoors even in places where it freezes, and they have the characteristics of tropical waterlilies. For years people tried to create a waterlily in blue or a colour close to blue, a colour that belongs and has always belonged only to tropical waterlilies. With this technique they have managed to create waterlilies that come close to the sky blue/blue/purple colour, but that can stay outdoors even in winter in cold places without any problem.
How to grow hardy waterlilies: the blog guide
YouTube channel with plant-growing videos
