Amazing!
My lotus is having a flower bud

sedumzz said: Amazing!
My lotus is having a flower bud

I've grown water lilies but never Lotus. I was shocked at the flower size and the height above the water. Plus the beauty. There were two different types of bees in the flower when i first looked. The wind picked up just as i was getting the camera ready, messed up the one pic.

Checked it today, looks even better, more open. Here's pics.

Gorgeous! Nice big bloom!

We have had some freaky weather this winter including several weeks of 80 degree weather along with a hard freeze and some near freezes. I have a lotus in a tub on the patio and it is already putting up leaves. They are small, mostly 2" floaters at this point but I see the first above the water leaf today. Normally once the leaves start standing out of the water is when I start fertilizing but I think it is too early this year. Do I chance fertilizing and pushing growth while we could still have cold weather or should I wait a few weeks? Any thoughts?

Alice - I would wait a few weeks. I usually start fertilizing my 2 lotus pots in March.

Thanks Becky, I have never had one start growing so early in the year.

If you have them in a pond with fish, do they still need fertilized?

You really can't let them loose in a pond, they will spread all over the place. It is best to keep them potted and yes, when in a pot if you want flowers fertilizer is necessary.

@ardesia, I just have an ornamental pond, goldfish, and I would very much like them to spread all over it Just thought if there were fish, maybe they don't need the extra fertilizer? I do have algae I would like to control so thought a lily of some sort would use the nutrients that the algae are living on

The floating leaves of a water lily or two depending on the size of your pond would cover the surface of the water and prevent too much algae. Algae is typical this time of year as the pond "wakes up." I think if you want blooming lilies or lotus you always have to fertilize, they will grow but not bloom without extra nutrients. You have other options to prevent algae like barley products. You can also make sure the surface of the pond has good coverage from plants limiting the sunlight that encourages algae. Good luck with it, algae can be a pain but it can be overcome.

My large Thai pot cracked during the terrible freeze this winter so I had to take out the lotus and replant it. I put pond liner in the pot but the lotus never did well. It sent up several leaves that quickly died. Today, I salvaged the tubers as I suspected they were rotting. Some were dead, others were intact. The ones that are pink/tan have roots on the end but no growth tips. Is this a lost cause? Can I rehabilitate the tubers? Zone 7b - Atlanta

Lotus seem to be all about the growth tips. The tuber can be fine, but in order to grow it needs a healthy growth tip on the end, from which it will produce leaves and send down roots. I've never managed to save a failing lotus, so perhaps someone else here will have wisdom to enlighten the both of us.

I agree with Paul, they always make a fuss about the growth tips.

I tried a mini-lotus this year along with two compact tropical water lilies. The tropical water lilies are doing great; the hotter it gets here the more leaves they make.

The lotus however is barely putzing along. It has a total of six small (quarter sized) leaves and none of them are airborne. What gives? It is planted in a 1/2 whiskey barrel (plastic), 8" of water on top of it, heavy topsoil ...

me too, I can't get them to do anything.

Some lotus starting pictures for this year.

I started seed from an edible tuber variety in a water bottle this year, under my germination lights. Nothing had been done with it before this picture but to damage the seed coat and drop it in half a bottle of water under lights for a few weeks:


I cut it out of the bottle and gently put it in some media. Unfortunately, many of the main leaves dried up, but the rhizome is healthy and it still has growth points, so I think it will recover. Next time I'll remember to cover the plant transparently at transplant to let it adjust to less humid air.




I normally start tuber divisions in small containers in my greenhouse, before putting them into their growing spaces once the weather/water warms enough. They grow new leaves from the tips before they put out roots, and I've found that the tuber is best left above the soil. I'll pin the tuber to the soil with a clip or a rock once the leaves have elongated. Shallow water seems best for getting them going, and I don't always have the luxury to produce the right conditions in the target locations, so this is my nursery.

Mini lotus. The blue bowl is one that I made for this purpose. The others will go to their own bowls once I get them finished.


Larger lotus. One of these is an edible tuber that will go in my food pond when it's ready. The other is shown a couple weeks later with elongated growth points, being placed with a curved rock to pin it in a large container in my front display pond that I just cleaned out.

Growing the seeds in a bottle was a cool experiment. I don't think I ever left the tubers on top of the medium surface but I never put them very deep and the growth tips were always exposed. Good to know they don't have to be buried.

Paul - WAY COOL! Love your little experiment/lotus project! I have lotus too, but as Alice stated, I have always shallowly buried them in the soil in their water container. I get plenty of leaves every year, but its hit and miss every year with getting Lotus blooms. Any suggestions?