Potted lilly........never seen this before

I picked up a lilly today as the price was right and I am fond of red
lillys. Anyhow, this lilly was in a stock pond at a nursery. It was
already gorwing with lots of leaves, and looked really good. I noticed
it had what appeared to be foam rubber rolle d up around the lilly
root, to a size that fit snugly in the 8" diam pot it was in. Label
said not to repot the plant the first year, and that it had fertilizer
already in the pot, but to fertilize when new growth is oted or water
temps are over 60 deg. The pot was a standard nursery stock pot, with
6 holes around bottom edge, 8" in diameter and perhaps 10 inches tall.
The foam rubber was about1/2" thick cut into a strip of approx 2" wide
with the root in the center, with the foam rolled around it like a
roll of paper towels would be. I pulled it out to look, and thats when
I seen it was about 2" wide strip rolled up with lilly in center of
it. Under the foam rubber was pelleted clay.......The foam was a black
/ grey color, and was nothing more than what would appear to be cheap
carpet padding type foam..Seems like a pretty good idea to plant it
this way. A little gravel easily covered the foam at the top, and no
chance of a fish eating the roots or stirring up the dirt in the pot.
The foam is an open cell so water and nutrients can get in it and it
can compress with plant grpwth.

Anyone ever seen a lilly planted this way before? Pros/Cons to it
being done this way?

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Put some color in your cheeks...garden naked!