"Reel McKoi" wrote:


"Hal" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 21 Jul 2007 12:03:15 CST, "Reel McKoi"
wrote:

My ponds are doing fine with lots of blooms on the water lilies but the
stubborn Lotus still refuses to bloom. Lots of nice leaves but never a
flower in all these years.

Try my recipe! I use 20 gallon half barrel size pots and fill about
6 to 8 inches with dirt and add 4 Aquatic Spikes. Fill with water,
lay a tuber on the dirt at least 4 inches away from the spikes and
place a rock/weight on top. My unknown variety had 9 blooms this
season and the Mrs Perry D Slocum had three.

OK, mine are in a 100 gallon kiddy pool with about 8" of soil and maybe 2"
of water over that. I add Jobe's Rose fertalizer sticks and get plenty of
huge leaves year after year.... not never a flower. It's a huge plant now
and not in one of the ponds. Aquatic Sticks? What is their NPK?

I saw one of the plants a friend put in her pond the other day and it
has it's first bloom due to open in a week or so. The dirt and time
released fertilizer seem to make a big difference.

I'm done until I turn the pots over next February. I think it was a
good season.

No way I can turn over this 100g pool full of wet soil. I'm really afraid
to try and remove the plant because I can't see where the growing tips or
banana shaped growing ends are. Also, how many growing ends or tips would
such a large old plant have? Is there a safe way to do this under the
circumstances?


We have just been thru a 100 year rain month in Texas.

Before the rain my Lotus was up just fine. I was getting about 5 or 6
blossoms a day. The three sections of lotus are up to as much as 6
feet tall now, I think there were only 5 blossoms out today.

The plants are in a bog and along about 10 feet of the edge of a 5000
gallon pond. They were so successful last year that I had to reduce
the population during the winter.

They sure are pretty.