Nelumbo, Lotus 'Mrs. Perry D. Slocum'

Gorgeous, gorgeous lotus. Very vigorous with huge bubble gum-scented blooms. I have 4 in sunken tubs behind my lily pond and one in the...Read More pond. Even when not in bloom, the huge, "satellite dish antenna" leaves are amazing, and it's fun to drip water on the leaves and watch it bead up and roll off. I don't even feel the need to try other lotuses, LOL.

I planted this lotus in a barrel pond last summer and it seemed to do great. I missed the one and only bloom when I was away at school un...Read Morefortunately and the plant seemed to wither away . I added water hyacinths to make the little pond interesting still and assumed the lotus was dead. Today I was cleaning out the pond and emptied out the dirt and water and found that the lotus had survived and multiplied profusely. At least 10 to 12 new tubers were at the bottom of the pond. I'm moving the whole pond to a new are and hope the new tubers thrive. Hopefully I will get more than just one bloom this season.

If more people realized how truly easy such gorgeous
aquatic plants were, there would be bounty of Mrs. Perry D.
Slocum lot...Read Moreus everywhere!

It is such a gorgeous flower, and yet at just the right moment
looks so perfect, you just can't help but to stare at it in
disbelief that such a beauty is not artificial.

True, after a few days of hard blooming, it begins to relax,
fall apart and look disheveled, but the few days of stunning
beauty is enough for me to anxiously await the next bloom.

The buds on Mrs. Perry D. Slocum are huge!

The story behind this bloom is as follows.
Copyright for the following text belongs to
Helen Nash of Water Gardening (1996).
'Perry' lends reference to Mr. Perry Slocum, an American
legacy in the lotus world. 1913-2004.

***Begin copyrighted text by Helen Nash***

"Probably Perry's most well known lotus hybrid occurred as the result of a friend's suggestion that he try hybridizing the native American lotus, Nelumbo lutea with the very double pink Nelumbo 'Rosea Plena.' Perry made eight crosses: 4 using N. lutea to N. 'Rosea Plena' and 4 vice versa. From those 8 crosses, only 2 seeds formed. Planting the 2 seeds the following year produced one weak seedling that was discarded and the other, an extremely vigorous plant that opened a very rich double pink, changing to creamy yellow with a pink flush over a three day blooming period. This changeable lotus was named 'Mrs. Perry D. Slocum' and is now the most popular and largest selling lotus in North America.

***End copyrighted text by Helen Nash***

I have submitted the closest American postal code to where I live in Canada. I had purchased this Lotus (Mrs. Perry D. Slocum) from an ed...Read Moreucator who dabbled in pond plants. It was well worth the modest money I had paid for the plant. This plant has been the centre of attention when friends comment on our backyard.
While I was re-arranging our landscape in the fall I forgot about my Lotus. It snowed and froze over. In the spring I was in the proces of throwing it out and as I turned it over the dirt fell out of the pot, and to my amazement there was ten healthy rhizomes. I will keep this cite abreast of how these rhizomes respond to propagation.