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The Narcoleptic Lotus
If the lotus wasn't a living thing I would think it was created by
Microsoft. I have come to learn that the plant has a habit of growing like mad for weeks at a time then stopping completely for months at a time. In March I bought a Maggie Belle Slocum lotus tuber and planted it into a half-whiskey barrel container. The tuber was fresh because I was right there when the guy pulled the tuber from the pond at Slocum Water Gardens. I planted it in the tub, put fertilizer and manure into the dirt that I also bought from Slocum and let it go. For about a month the lotus grew, putting out many floating leaves but no upright leaves. (I live near Orlando so this is Zone 9 I think?) Then it stopped growing, but the leaves remained alive for weeks. Then the leaves started to die and it eventually got to the point where they were all dead. Then after falling asleep for over 8 weeks I spotted a small leaf stalk which eventually became a real leaf (pink when opened and appeared thick) I then noticed that leaves started appearing all over the pot and now 5 weeks later the plant looks great and healthy with about a dozen bright green upright leaves. When hope seemed lost, I was at a local nursery that was selling Perry D. Slocum tubers so I bought one of those and decided to try again. I still had some hope on the first tuber, so I bought another half-whiskey barrel and planted the new tuber into it. Again, the new tuber grew like crazy: it put out about 2 floating leaves then started putting out upright leaves. Then after about 3 weeks of solid growth it just stopped growing. Leaves that were in the process of growing out of the mud have stopped. There's been a new leaf poking out for over a month that's still tightly rolled up! The existing leaves are all green, like the other lotus it just seems frozen in time. I also have some lotus seeds that will put out 4 leaves very rapidly then they will stop growing but still have the nice healthy leaves. I always threw them out, but the last time I tried this I waited it out and after about 3 months it started growing vigorously again. Is this common? I had a lotus years ago in PA and didn't notice this strange growing pattern. Why do they go to sleep like this? Are they developing tuber during this period that they appear inactive? |
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