Hi Dianna: All the advice I've read so far is spot on. I believe your waterlily is a hardy based on the shape of the rhizome. The good news is that it will survive your winters and that once it is growing, it is not as picky about what depth it is planted at (heed earlier advice about keeping it shallow/warm until it gets growing well) as the leaves and flowers will adjust. The bad news, if you were hoping for a blue or purple flower color, is that those colors are restricted (so far) to tropical varieties. The photo shows several crowns that can be divided (cut through rhizome with a sharp knife leaving an inch or so around each growing point/crown) to make multiple plants or leave as is and plant it in a pot with the youngest end (shown in the left of the top photo and right in the bottom) closest to the pot edge. Of course, by now, it may be warming up enough that it is shooting up leaves like crazy. In which case, just plant the whole rhizome and let it go crazy. I fertilize mine with those little Jobe plant food sticks. You can break em in half and shove them deep into the soil all around the crown. The trick is to get the plant food down to the lily roots so that you get flowers, not algae bloom in your pond.
