Water Hyacinths

Anyone had much experience with these?
I know they don't do frost and cold winters, so they've been living in my parents pool room to avoid our English Winters, but the leaves are going totally brown.. I think they may be dying?

What can I do?

 

Cant help I'm afraid, I've never got them through a winter in the greenhouse.
I think the temperature of the water might be critical, I did once read you should pot them up in mud over the winter, but never tried it.

 

Eichhornia crassipes?



I believe that they're rather short lived in still water. The best that I can suggest is to remove the dead bits and transplant the remainder to a large container filled with clean rainwater, or an aquarium with an oxygenator pump.

In Africa and parts of America it is considered an invasive weed of the highest order! However, trials have also shown that it is extremely useful for cleaning water bodies damaged by industrialization.

 

I got one to flower outdoors in my "bucket" last summer for the first time....

I have grown them for years in my ponds when I lived at my parents house and even in those they become rampant and I found myself discarding some of it on a regular basis; shame as it's a lovely plant.

I did manage to overwinter some a couple of times, the key I found was saving the youngest offshoots at the end of the summer/autumn, don't try and save the original 'parent' plant as these invariably die off eventually anyway after producing a dozen or more 'babies'. I kept them on an indoor fish tank that was above 7 degrees all winter.

I have also heard of keeping them in a tray of wet mud as long as its kept frost free, ideally over 5-7 degrees.

Brown leaves are common on older plants, the babies don't seem to suffer from them unless they're kept too cold....

Good Luck

 

Hmm. I would have thought they had kept warm'ish.. They are in the pool room which is heated with solar panels etc. so it is usually quite warm! Oh well, will have to see how they go i guess.
I would really like to have them flower this year in my pond

 

"The Pool Room"
Is this a place for knocking around the odd ball?
Or is that the "swimming" variety?

 

Lol sorry Pete, it is the pool room as in swimming pool!
(But obviously the plants are not in the actual pool, they are in a large tub full of normal rainwater!)