Lotus help

[glstine]

I have about an 700 gallon pond that I put a lotus in and it has done nothing but deteriorate since I put it in. Other plants are doing very well. The lotus gets full sun and the water depth is about an inch above the soil. It has been in for about 2 months and there has been no new growth and almost all of the leaves have turned brown and died. I tried fertilizing and it did no good.

My mother in law has a lotus as well that looks about the same as ours. Are these plants just incredibly difficult or are we just having bad luck?

 

[Guest]

Lotus need a BIG pot, like 3-5 gallons of soil, and heavy fertilization. Even then, they can be pretty tricky. I have 2, neither have flowered this year. I use some brand of pondtab fertilizers, as instructed on package. 1 has great foliage, the other is kind of fading as you described. The fading one did have an infestation of aphids earlier this year, I did not notice till it got really bad, so I'm assuming that is his problem. The other one, I'm not sure. I'm going to re-pot both of them in the spring, hopefully that will help them.

Additionlly, I would like to say that both of these plants are 3 years old, and have looked better than this all other years, and each has flowered in previous years.

It gets rather frustrating when I drive past a nearby farm pond, and they have like 50 Lotus in bloom for most of the summer!