Surprised that waterlilies were NOT in the top 25! How are these lists compiled?

The main reason I love water gardening is to grow waterlilies. I was very surprised that they weren't even mentioned! When I think of water gardening .... I think of "water" such as a pond or water container. Shows how much I know ....

I was surprised at some of the plants on the list, just never thought of them as water plants even though I knew many of them grew along streams and banks. I also had fun counting the many water plants that are the same ones in my gardens.

I suspect no one ever filled in the data to identify them as water plants. The computer-aided lists are compiled by finding all of the plants of the specific category and choosing the 25 with the most photos by several different contributors and the most comments.

If you see that a special theme week is coming up, and you want to make sure your favorites are among the top 25, add data, photos, and comments to those entries.

There are many true water plants that are not in the list. Water Lilies, Water Lettuce, all the many pond plants that grow in a sunny water garden like parrot feather. Cattails would certainly be a well known and grows all over water plant but they are not on the list either.

It's a popularity contest.

The primary entry for Water Lilies only has photos from 1 person and a single comment.

Nymphaeas (Nymphaea)

That means it's not going to rank very high when I pull the list.

Next month is Daylilies Week. We should somehow let the Daylilies people know that if they want their favorite cultivar to appear, they better make sure they've posted a photo and a comment about it to the DB!

I have TONS of daylilies that I have not posted comments about.

Make sure you've commented about your favorites!

Yes, I had better do that.

Thanks for the explanation of how plants make it to the TOP of the list. I had no idea that is how you choose them, Dave! Thanks for clarifying!

Uh oh, I think it was a spelling issue - I searched "Water Lily" in the Database and came up with 50 pages of entries.

First I searched "waterlilies" though. Nada.

Then I got curious and just typed in "Water" and came up with a lot more water plants and less trees and marginal plants.

btw, Congratulations Dave to you and Trish and . . . well what the heck are you doing on this site right now!?