I'm in zone 8b, so no practical experience, but do you really need to bring
in the lotus? Aren't they hardy to zone 4 or 5? Try treating them the same
as what you do with your hardy lilies.

Impressed that you successfully overwinter tropical lilies.

--
Wendy* in N. California,

"Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people
are works of art." Eleanor Roosevelt


"bern" wrote in message
om...
Arrrghhh!

I have no problems with hardy waterlillies in my southern Michigan
pond. They come back year after year and bloom heavily. I have no
problem with tropical water lillies which I bring in every winter to a
heated horse trough where they live (without blooming) until they go
out in Spring.

I have tried several different types of hardy Lotus over the years,
treating them essentially the same as the hardy lillies. But they
always die, if not after one year, then after two. I planted one last
year that put up several leaves and looked very good by fall. But this
spring it has failed to regrow, and is certainly dead.

Question: How does the care and feeding of Lotus differ from that of
hardy lillies? What do you guys who successufully overwinter lotus and
water lillies do differently with the two plants.

thanks

bern