Annie, I find lotus a fairly easy plant to grow, but if they aren’t flowering it is usually because they lack enough sun or nutrients. If yours is getting plenty of sun, I would suggest you fertilize it if you aren’t already doing that - they are heavy feeders.
The easiest way to feed them is to take one of those big Jobes fruit tree fertilizer spikes and put it on something hard (driveway or sidewalk) and break it up into chunks with a hammer. I poke 3 or so pieces about the size of a large marble down into the soil in the lotus pot once very month to six weeks starting as soon as they have their first leaves in the air in the Spring and usually stop around mid August to let them slow down in time to go dormant in the fall. You may need to adjust for your cooler climate and might want to use bigger or more pieces if you have large plants. I mostly grow smaller varieties and keep them that way by growing them in the oil pans that keep them a bit root bound. If I’m separating the tubers (early spring) and repotting, I usually put a couple tablespoons of osmocote in the bottom of the pot and that will get them through most of the first season. But by the second year they need a boost.
If you don’t want to bother with the fruit tree spikes there are water plant tablets, etc. but they are very expensive for what they are. You can also just take a teaspoon or so of 10-10-10 or something like that and wrap it up in a piece of paper towel and poke that down into the soil, but I find the junks of the jobes spikes the easiest. I’m sure you can use other formulation of the spikes, but I just bought the one package and at the current rate it will last me 10 or more years.
Thanks for the instructions. II have two pots. Mine are in half whiskey barrel size pots. I did feed them in the spring when I took them out of garage, boy them are heavy! One grows well except no bloom. One I probably killed it by over fertilize the pot soil. Roots are alive but buds aren’t, nothing grow out of water . I grow water cress in that pot instead.
Tony, I don’t think the roots you can buy in the store will work. The hardest part of lotus growing is handling the roots, especially separating our tubers when repotting. If you break any of the growing points, water can get in and they can sort of drown. Besides that the ones I’ve seen in stores usually have all the growing points cut off - sort of like getting a fig cutting with no live buds, they won’t ever grow and will just rot in the pot. Also, I think even if they grew, they are optimized for big tubers not necessarily flowers so I’m not sure what they’d look like.
The most awesome place to get lotus from is Ten Mile Creek nursery, which developed out of a research project at Auburn that included many imported lotus, including a lot of smaller types not usually available. Hardly anyone seems to know of them unless you are a lotus geek, but if you take a look at the varieties they offer it is very impressive. Stock is only available early in the year when they’ve separated their tubers and they are still dormant and ready to ship. Basically like our bare root trees we get.
It’s time to keep a feral cat. That’s the only thing stopping voles in my friend’s yard. I have neighbor cats roaming my yard once in a while so voles know they have enemies.
