I have had these for more than several years but I've moved them several times and they have never flowered. Guessing pads are about 2/3 inches? Are you able to ID something close? Or need additional information? Thank you!

Give them more sun and a bigger pot; be sure to use soil made for them.
They might need a bit deeper water as well.
Do you feed them? I feed mine twice a month with a pelleted food made for water lilies. It is pushed down into the soil.
Are there large fish in the pond? They could be nibbling the little buds.

Hi Iochroma,

Thank you for the reply. They are in a pond, a low spot in the field that starting this year, I have been digging out a little bit and keeping water in for wildlife, mainly birds.

The pond receives full sun and the lillies are rooted in the native clay soil. I do not know what I am doing and dug them up a week or ago and moved them to deeper water... But from the soil to the pads on the water is probably around 6" plus or minus. Should I move them to deeper water and if I do, is it OK that all of the pads will be below the waterline?

The tules and the lilies came from a couple of small preformed pond liner type ponds I picked up from Home Depot years ago. As you can see, the tules have taken off and the lilies are at least double in size since I put them out there a couple of months ago. I have never fertilized them but as of this last weekend, I picked up a couple of more pond plants and the gentleman told me I should start fertilizing the pond plants.

I picked up a Dwarf Egyptian Papyrus and another lilly with larger pads and purple flowers and a plant the guy called a water puppy? The water puppy? did not have a tag and I am not able to find anything on the WWW about a water puppy. Anyhow, I was told to fertilize those plants and will do the same with these yet to be identified lillies that I posted about.

Only mosquito fish inhabit the pond.

Thank you for your help.

I would try to raise the water level, or plant the lily in a deeper spot. It is OK if the leaves are under water. New ones will come to the surface.
Could your new plant be a "water poppy"?

Its hard to name likes by just the pads. I can tell it is a Tropical water lily not a hardy, only a very few hardies, like Arc en Ciel, have patterned pads. To try and ID it you really need a bloom, so that you can at least be in the color ballpark

There are a bunch of hardy water lilies with patterned leaves.
You are right that flowers will be needed to make a stab at the identity.

Are there? Back when I was doing lilies in the late 1980's early to mid 1990's I don;t ever recall finding and harries with patterns

Gina1960 said:Are there? Back when I was doing lilies in the late 1980's early to mid 1990's I don;t ever recall finding and harries with patterns

'Chromatella', 'Aurora', 'Lucida', 'Sulphurea', 'Paul Hariot', and my fave, little 'Helvola'. There are more.

Oh you reminded me! I did used to grow Helvola!

Iochroma and everyone else! Thank you for the info. and replies! I looked up water poppy and that looks like it. I will plant the lilly deeper and follow-up when I get flowers. Thank you again!

And we have flowers!

Per PlantNet:

Nymphaea mexicana is a species of aquatic plant that is native to the Southern United States and Mexico as far south as Michoacán.[1][2] Common names include yellow waterlily, Mexican waterlily and banana waterlily.

Yes, but 'Chromatella' is most likely.

Thank you lochroma and everyone else!