For the bucket method, does the water need to be replaced occasionally, or just topped off? Would an air stone be beneficial, or is stagnant water ok?
Stagnant water should be totally fine. The roots get oxygen from air channeled down through the leaves. If you hold a leaf under water for a few seconds, you’ll see air bubbling out of where the petiole inserts. That said, I like to let the water overflow for a minute or two once the plant is growing well to flush out algae and any salt buildup.
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The one in the aquarium with a heater and water flow is growing a lot faster than the ones in the buckets, but they all seem ok. One of them has it’s oldest leaf turning yellow, is this a sign it should be fed?
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Hey Winn, in aquariums, when any Lily gets yellow leaves we boost the iron. It works every time. More than NPK. Either iron tabs or some iron substrate.
This stuff is great too. Flourish iron. It’s chelated liquid. Use it in planted Lily tanks all the time. I am afraid if you boost the N you will just get green. I would try to boost the Fe a week or 2 first.
It needs a blood sacrifice ha. Sacred lotus.
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I’m down to three remaining, two in buckets and one in the pond. The one in the pond was the biggest at the time of transplanting, but it’s been sad looking since then, though it has recently put up a new leaf:
The ones in the buckets have grown much more steadily over the same period, and are healthier:
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@GrapeNut @swincher @Noddykitty @gosaspursm
I have 2 lotus growing in a see-through container with pond mud at the bottom and lotus rooting in mud.
I keep the water temperature at 78 and I use a grow light.
After 2 months each has 4 leaves but no leaf has unfurled. Stems are submerged and about 6" long.
Is that typical that no leaf unfurled yet?
I got these lotus seeds off of a neighbor and he didn’t know if they were Bonsai or pot lotus or a full size lotus or anything else.
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The leaves should have unfurled. Not sure why they haven’t. Lotuses generally don’t do well under grow lights though. They really need full sun.
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@GrapeNut @Noddykitty @swincher @gosaspursm
Since I can’t give them full sun this time this year, I’ll try switching grow lights.
Instead of having a lot of red I’ll go with a grow light that has more blue which I understand is better for vegetation.
First Picture of grow light spectrum that I am currently using but will change to second pic grow light.
Will see if change opens up leaves.
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That’s pretty cool. I have never done one inside. All the ones I have done inside in aquariums are dwarf lilys. But the dwarf lilys are all light hogs. I would say run both lights instead of just one spectrum or the other. All things considered I would say light intensity is better than spectrum break down till you can get them outside. Are you running florescent or led lights?
I bet the unfurling is about light hungry. The dwarf lilys in aquariums always do that to new leaves if the floaters leaves are shading out too much light. They just bob a few inches below the surface and never unfurl until I pinch out a spot for them.
Swincher is taking a break from the forum so we probably won’t hear back from him.
Thanks for insight…
They are LED grow lights.
So you mention your lilies in an aquarium.
Are you using the word lily interchangeable with lotus?
I would guess either one grows similar.
So when you pinched other stuff out of the way and gave the lilies more light how long before the leaf unfurled?
I just got some bonsai lotus maybe they will tend to open up better than whatever kind I do have.
No my lotus was a decade ago in whisky barrel, full soutj sun for a seattle summer. It died in the winter. It bloomed and was glorious. It would be too big unless one had a very large open top aquarium.
The lilys grow very similar but stay a lot smaller. Aquarist refer to them as dwarf Lily. They are Nymphaea Stellata. They grow very easy indoors.
They come in green and red leaf variants. Here is a green one in the front left corner.
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thanks for info.
I think I’ll buy a Nymphaea Stellata and put in with the uncooperative closed leaf lotus
Will be nice to see something growing correctly, and it’s colorful.
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Fantastic! I’m just curious if anyone has tried crossing Sacred Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) x American Lotus (Nelumbo lotus). I wonder if the offspring would be more resilient? Maybe it would be easier to grow?
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There are lots of crosses between the two Nelumbo species, but they aren’t very well tracked so you could actually even get some by accident when buying lotus cultivars. Probably any cultivar with blended yellows and pinks in the flowers would be of hybrid origin, but surely some that don’t show obvious color indications will also be hybrid.
Here are some cultivars which appear to by of hybrid origin (to my eye) between N. nucifera and N. lutea.
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AWESOME! So glad I wasn’t the first to come up with that Idea. Incredibly how many cultivars actually exist! Are there any bred for Delicious nuts? Or those for improved Lotus root?
I wonder why they don’t list if it’s an interspecies hybrid, pin holeing into either species but not both? Could it be that more diversity exist in just that one species? Or is the only way to get Pink flowers into Nelumbo lutea to cross it with Nelumbo nucifera?
To my knowledge, the hybrids which have been made were for ornamental purposes, but the nursery I posted links to above does have a number of lotus cultivars which are specifically recommended for high production of seeds or large edible rhizomes. From what I have seen, those cultivars all appear to be straight N. nucifera though.
Lots of varieties have been imported from China and it seems a lot gets lost in translation. I do love Ten Mile Creek nursery, but it seems they don’t worry about the botanical name accuracy. As far as I can tell, they list every cultivar as Nelumbo nucifera. As an example, I looked at their listing for ‘Perry’s Giant Sunburst’ which is a documented hybrid made by Perry Slocum. On the nursery website they simply list it as Nelumbo nucifera. I also looked up the cultivar ‘Yellow Bird’ which if I’m not mistaken is a non-hybrid selection of Nelumbo lutea. Again, it is also listed as Nelumbo nucifera. In general, my experience has often been that you can’t rely on most nurseries to provide accurate botanical names for the plants they offer, no matter how awesome the nursery is. Even amongst nursery people, botanical language is commonly over their heads…
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Interesting, yea that would make sense as the Lotus roots & Seeds I seen at the grocery store were the asian species (No one here really eats the American species beside a few foragers). I only learned about Lotus being edible from Forager Samuel Thayer’s Book hence what sparked my interest in crossing both species for improved edibility. What’s great I’ve heard the seeds can last a very long time or indefinitely if store properly.
I think this is what you must’ve meant as an example of an Edibile cultivar. I must’ve not seen it thinking all they sold were ornamental cultivars.
ah, yea that’s where ID Skills and knowledge between the species differences is important. Thank you for the clarification, I’ll know to take their scientifc name with a grain of salt.
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