I would not separate the pairs. .esp now as it is late in the lotus planting
season. By end of April (at the latest) bare root lotuses should be in. In
fact most nurseries usually don't ship bare root lotuses after March.
Lotuses have runners growing out on opposite ends of the tuber. You must be
careful not to cut the growing runners (tips) off, when the plant is
young/transplanted, or they can die.
Once established you can get away with it. (I did as mentioned with the
above lotus that had filled its 3 foot pot).
Many "tubers" you are sold are actually runners, and should not be divided,
just planted as is.
Tubers vary in size. The biggest I have seen is a full banana size. It was
clear what was the tuber, what were the runners for that one!
If yours are stuck together (assuming its the same variety), I'd leave them
together for this and the following season, then in season 3 did the plant
up (carefully), in early March (depending on your zone) before growth
resumes, and cut the tuber.. leaving at least 2 nodal areas beyond each cut.
You'll be surprised at how fast they grow, and how long these tubers get
each season.
You can literally use the buried tub approach (that I use in the pond), and
place the tubs in other areas in the yard, as long as you are sure to keep
them covered with a couple inches of water, and add mosquito dunks, etc (to
avoid standing water issues).
They make great foreground plants along the sides of fences etc.!
Happy ponding,
Greg


"BenignVanilla" m wrote in
message ...
"Gregory Young" wrote in message
t...
snip
To plant, I get the $25 - $37 Agway heavy plastic (feels almost like
rubber)
barrels that are 3 feet in diameter, and about 8 inches or so deep.
I dig out a hole in the clay floor of the pond, near the edge, and use
the
clay excavated to fill the barrel, to 1 inch from the top of the barrel.
(I fill it part way, then drag it into the water for buoyancy to offset
its
weight a bit, then fill as above. I could never move a fully filled wet
clay
containing barrel of this size otherwise!)
Then I "plant" the tuber on the surface, (basically laying a flat stone
of
top of it, so it doesn't float away), then drag the barrel into the hole
..
When done the pot is 2 inches under water, maximum.
The lotuses grow like crazy, and bloom profusely (except last year the
blooms had a one day life span due to Japanese beetles!).
All the barrels are round (don't plant lotus in square pots, no matter
what
kind of pond you have, as the square edges can "pinch" the growing tip
of
the tuber, which always seems to find that corner to get wedged in.
The other advantage of shallow depth is that I can catch the running
tuber
when it jumps the pot edges, which is a yearly event, and put it back
into
the pot, or as I had to do last year, cut it, as there was no room
left...

I just got 2 healthy tubers from a friend, and they actually look like 4
stuck together in pairs...Can you recommend a safe way to divide them?

BV.