My First Lotus for the Season.

Woohooo, here it comes.

Beautiful! As of now, I only have massive leaves....but my water lilies are finally blooming....

Hopefully the flower will open up the next couple of days. I fertilized it as the water warm up. The buds are popping up left and right. I'm hoping for a good show this year.

Oh how wonderful :) I hope you will continue to take and post the pictures of beautiful flowers :) I have two lotus tubers in the green house. There are quite a few pads on both. Pretty soon I will be putting them in the pond:)
Tootsie

Tootsie, your pond is huge! How big is it? Will water lilies and lotus survive winter where you're? Mine is in a small tub and even though the water in the tub froze over. They just went dormant and returned every spring for the past 3-5 years.

Hi Lily_love,
, 150 X 90? We have to keep shoring up all the way around the pond, trying to keep the darn herons from killing what is left of the fish! Last year the Great Blue heron decided it was too hard to get down in between the huge tree roots! We watched the darn thing just hop into the deep end of the pond, and just swim around killing my fish :((((((((( Yes, I put the water lilies and lotus in their containers, I drill holes in the containers , thread small ropes thru the holes, tie and send them down in the pond for winter. In late spring I pull them up and out, then trim them up, put a fertilizer cube ( I make my own using newspaper) and stick them down in the clay, put them back in pond and they bloom wonderfully :)
How wonderful to have yours come back :) I am going to put the 2 lotus in the pond today :) This spring when I was pulling the lilies out, 4 of them turned over , and slid down into the deeper water! Now I have them all sending up pads and I just did see one big bloom coming up :) Maybe I should just let them all root into the clay bottom and grow n bloom on their own, except for the lotus, LOL
I hope you will post some pics of your pond and flowers :)
Tootsie

Tootsie,

Sorry to hear the Herons are a pain for the fish. I'm thankful you've share your method of weathering your aquatic plants. I've a couple thousand gallons pond in the shade, thus is ideal for fish but not for the bog plants. So my Lotus is in a little half whiskey barrel size tub. In early morning hours the flower was trying to open up....

Here is the Lotus tub complimenting my other tropical planting...

At last I caught the flower as it's fully open. Bees love the mild fragrant of the flowers.

Lovelyyyyyy Lotus, Kim

I do the same thing with my lily pots, actually black dishpans from walmart. drilled four holes, one in each corner, then run wire up about 10" above the dirt level on one side, then when I run the other wire, I loop it around the first one (like an X). Makes it pretty sturdy and not likely to tip. I can place them in the deep end under the ice cap and fish them out in the spring. this is the first year I have tried to grow them in kitty littler. Not too sure about it. they are reallllly slow even with fertilizer.

Thank Burn, mstella. I live by a lake. For quite sometime I was wondering whether I could raise some exotic aquatic plants. Now you've given me the idea how I can try them out. Many thanks to you and toosie that have shared the idea.

You're welcome. Just be sure that what you introduce doesn't get away from you into the wild. lol.

Ditto.

Your lotus is beautiful! Mines on her second year now and she has a small pond of her own and I can't wait for her flowers this year! I'm very excited! I gave her plenty of food and I'm just waiting. I live in zone 9~10 so the hardiness map tells me by my zip code so I'm assuming that means I have a micro climate. I wish it was narrowed down to 9 or10 but its not it just says 9~10. At any rate the lotus seem very happy and I just can't wait for the blooms this year!

realsis, the lotus is hardy here. It survived the freeze over even being in a small tub. I left the tub outdoor all through the winter. I'm pleased with it. The problem with trying some aquatic plants that are bigger in the lake is that I afraid it will escape to the wild due to current created about the water body.

Today marks the end of the blooming on this lotus in the garden with mature seedpods. I noticed some of the leaves began to turn brown, though, there are many young fresh leaves also coming up to the surface. About the seeds, some were not pollinated? those unpollinated seeds appear stunned. The healthy matured ones are much bigger seeds. See inset.