My father was a quite brilliant and gifted hybridizer of waterlilies.  Here I will prove this brag, with a few links, Pioneer,  Hybridization,  Obituary

As a result, I am quite interested in hybridizing waterlilies, however I am quite scared to ever present a waterlily.  Take for example this lovely plant.

It is a small hardy, barely 2 1/2 inches across.  Quite lovely, well formed, with a lot of petals.   Now for the downside, it is pink.  So many pink varieties, there is hardly a reason for one more.  So as far as the market goes, this may not be terribly special.  Since there are enough similar plants, this may not present enough special quality to be introduced.  For my own yard, it is however quite a treasure.  I am calling it ‘Kirk’s Gift’ after my father.

I have a few other really nice hybrids, but none of my hybrids could  really be put in the league  with my father’s.  I do have a mini yellow  that is a cross between Helvola and Mexicana, that will occasionally bloom in full shade and blooms quite well in partial shade.  I was experimenting with Helvola because it is a great mini, has odd blooming times and seems to like shade.  However Helvola is quite picky about water depth and in the Texas heat, it does not always thrive.

This nice yellow mini does have enough good qualities to make it special, except, I am scared to let anyone else have any ‘Mini Mexi’, since it will take over and eliminate Mexicana from a pond.   To put that in perspective, Mexicana is legendary amongst pond gardeners for taking over ponds.  Mini Mexi grows much, much faster than Mexicana does.  This might make it useful for creating biomass, but in the wild, it would spread way to quickly.  This makes this lovely plant, potentially pond kudzu.   Still, by using it to breed with other waterlilies, I may yet get a plant that would not shame the family name.

Bob