Vickie
Newly Registered
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2011 8:08 pm
Location: Missouri USA

Overwintering Water Hyacinth

I overwinter water hyacinths here in zone 6. I plant them in dirt with tubs that hold water and do not drain. I plant them in August and take them inside my basement in Oct when it gets too cold for them to live. I put them under shoplights with the rest of my tropical water plants. The coldest it gets is 50*F in my basement. I keep them watered. I do not feed them all winter because it kills them the dirt is enough. Before I planted them in dirt I tried to over winter them in aquariums and they died every Feb. I take them outside in late April and put the whole tub in a bigger tub ( half barrel) and put an aquarium heater and window over the big tub. About 3 weeks later they have started to grow I carefully pull them out of the tub of dirt and take the tub out and let them float. I put some fish in the tub. I saved 70 last winter this way. I will say by April they look pretty rough but they come back.

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PunkRotten
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Posts: 1989
Joined: Sat Apr 16, 2011 8:48 pm
Location: Monterey, CA.

Thanks for sharing. I am over wintering some inside too. The ones in my small pond are still alive but ugly looking. They may very well survive. I am in zone 9 but I think it still gets a little chilly for them. I hear they don't like anything below 50F. We have had many nights that are in the low and mid 40s though. I brought 2 of them inside and stuck them in a small tank with a betta in it, and it has a CFL desk lamp over the tank.

I have other aquatic plants inside this tank and they all live with this light source. I have noticed that since adding the water hyacinth, some of the leaves are browning. What is strange is that I have a 12 gallon tub in my backward located in another part of the yard from my pond and it has a few Hyacinth in it and they seem unaffected. They are still big and green. I also keep Parrots feather and hornwort in it and all are growing crazy. I keep scuds and daphnia in this tub with the plants.

I am thinking about switching over to water lettuce though, I hear they are more hardy. Plus my Hyacinths never bloomed this summer. Disappointing.

TheRipeTomato
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Posts: 18
Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2012 1:22 am

I'm in Victoria BC, CANADA. We run a wholesale water plant nursery and we don't even have to do that for our hyacinths. They'll keep in a simple aquarium with water...add a little iron for food.

As for blooming, its stress that causes it. We sell about 45,000 hyacinth adult plants a year...they don't bloom. Chuck a bunch outside in the ditch or in one of our holder tanks and they all sprout up within a week.



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