Im going to talk about growing lotus from seed. I order my lotus seed off the internet from venders that sell from china. it takes a little while to get here but the price is right and the lotus have turned out beautiful! I grow both nucefieria( asian lotus) and lutea (american lotus). when the seeds arive I take the seeds and scar the seeds in order for the water to penertrate the seed. I do this buy rubbing the seed on the concrete until i see a faint white ring around the area I rubbed. if you rub farther you will see the fleshey white area of the seed. This is too far to rub and opens up the seed for bacteria and can kill the plant so i stop when i see a faint ring around the rubbed area. After rubbing i place the seeds in a bucket of shallow water in DIRECT sun. The water must stay warm. slight flucations wont bother the seed but cooler water can slow the process. I change the water daily and agaitate the seeds. soon the seeds will swell to three times their size! then you will see the seed split and the tiny plant will energe appearing like a bent fish hook. At this point i change the water level to match there final destination exactly. For example, my bog pond is 13 inches so i fill the water to 13 inches until the leave reaches the surface. i do this because once the first floating leaf emerages the plant will NOT tolerate a difference in water. so make sure when growing your plant the water level matches the final destination of the lotus. once my first leave reaches the waters surface the second leaf is well on the way. AT this point i plant my plant into my lotus bog. you want to plant just as or before the roots develop. This way they can develop a strong root system in their final destination without being bothered. the plant will feed off its seed until about the fourth leave appears. At this point i feed them with a good pond tab. lotus should be planted in heavy loam. I fill my bog with the loam and put sand on top. Sand has no nutrition for the lotus and they need the loam! Do not use potting mix as this can rot the tubbers. lotus grow long tubbers which new growth appears.This plant will not bloom the first year. last year i overwintered my lotus both in buckets and in a bog pond. The only ones that survived were the ones in the bog pond. so this year i decided to build a whole bog dedicated to lotus only and give them free reign without pots on the bottom of the bog. I also have got a preformed pond dedicated to lotus only. Im very excited because this year i will get flowers off my older lotus! Growing lotus is a learning expirence and can be extremely rewarding! I live in a micro climate zone 9a which is between zone 9 and 10 of the hardiness map. knowing your zone can help a great deal when it comes to overwintering your lotus. Lotus must have at least six hours of direct sun in order to be a healthy plant. so pick a nice sunny location for your lotus whether your growing in a pot or a bog. Dont be intemidated by growing lotus. It is fun and its a learning expirence. You can purchase five seeds off ebay for about 99 cents. I actually perfer to grow from seed because i am saving so much money. You can buy lotus tubers for about 30.00 or around that. But i think its fun to watch them grow from seed! also the plant grows so fast by the end of summer you will have a nice big lotus plant! when planting by seeds if the seed floats in the water i just toss that seed. ive never had a floating seed grow for me.I have heard of it happening before but its never happened for me and the floating seeds can rot and foul the water so i just toss them. Its up to you weather you want to give them a chance or not. You never know but they have never grown a plant for me. Ive started my new seeds this spring for my lotus bog pond and they seem to be growing well! so go ahead and try growing lotus from seed! its fun and very rewarding! Happy growing!
