Hi Daniella,
I think your preform would work fine for lotus. I wouldn't transplant it until it is dormant, in the late fall and put the entire thing down in the mud.....if you can. Also, after you add soil, I wouldn't put pea stone on it.
It will fill up your preform very quickly, and you will probably have to somehow thin it in a couple years.
I have a 300 gallon stocktank lotus bog, and I'm not sure how I'm going to thin it one day. I'm not looking forward to it!
Anyhow......I think your plan is a good one.
Don't forget to fertilize your lotus this summer, about every 3-4 weeks.
Good luck and let us know how it turns out.
P.S. I bury some of my lotus in their containers in the ground during winter, since I don't have enough pond space to sink them, and they do fine here in zone 5. So I think your's will be fine over winter in your preform.

Thanks Catherine. It didnt get fertilized as soon as it should have. I had a hard time finding the aquatic fert..noone had it. Then I found out about Jobe's, took awhile to find anyone that even carried that brand, then I had to have them special order the tomato spikes. So, even though it is planted in compost and composted manure, it didnt get the spikes till July! I hope I at least get one bloom this year.

Thinning your will prob be a major task..I dont envy you on that one! I'm not looking forward to the day I have to do that either, lol.

That's a good point about the pea stone, that will probably make thinning a much harder task. But it would look prettier, lol. I'm glad you mentioned that, thank you. Will def leave the stone out.

Hi daniell,

They seem to respond fairly quickly to fertilizer, so hopefully you'll get a blossom.
I've had lotus in the past that didn't blossom until the second year, unfortunately.
Just keep fertilizing it, and hopefully you'll get a blossom.
I'm sorry I missed that you have a dwarf variety. You probably won't have to thin for quite awhile, once its in the preform.
Please post pictures when you get it going!

Thanks Catherine. I will post pix..I guess I should do it in the gallery, correct?

Do you think if I put the whole pot into the preform, surrounded by soil that it will jump the pot and go into the mud? Or no?
Can you tell I am trying to get out of sticking my hands into that stanky gunk, lol. I never wear gloves, but I will have to for this! I am SO NOT looking forward to that.
thanks,
Daniella

Hmmmm.........I don't know about that. I think the stuff in the pot would die off, and the question would be whether or not it would send out runners, and how long they would take to develop tubers. I'm not sure they would get enough food from the crowded tubers to grow adequately.
Here's a possibility........in the late fall, you could dump your container out and cut out a few good tubers with growing tips and gently push them down into the muck at least 8", being careful not to hurt the growing tips? Hopefully, your soil will be very squishy and easy to push the tubers safely down into it. You want them far enough down that they won't freeze over winter.

Oh.....I don't know why I didn't think of this. Can you wait until you've planted your lotus in the preform, to add water? That way, it would be just like planting any other plant. Just dig a hole in the middle of the bog, set your lotus mass in the hole, and then add the water? If you could be very careful to get your entire lotus mass out now, without injuring it, you could actually do it now, and then add the water carefully, and it would start getting rooted in the new soil before fall.
You could partially wet the soil down, and it would still be alot less messy when adding the lotus, than if it had several inches of water over the soil.
Sorry if I'm being confusing! I keep thinking of better ideas as I talk!! :)

lol Catherine, no your not confusing, I get it.
Yes I would add the water after I plant the lotus. Right now the preform is empty except for an inch or so of rain water. Rain yesterday and today so I didnt get to start shoveling the soil in yet.
I'm wondering how in the world I am going to be able to even get this mass out of the pot at all! It's taken over the whole pot it is in..I am sure it is circling and touching the insides of the pot.
I would really like to get it in now, so it has time to get established.
If you have any more ideas like how I can get it out of the pot, lol..let me know, like I said, I didnt even start yet.

thank you Catherine!
Daniella

Hi Daniella,

How big is the pot its in now? To be completely honest with you, if its sort of pot-bound now, the best thing would be to wait until next spring and harvest one big tuber and plant that.
I don't have any experience with taking chances with lotus in the middle of summer, so I'm just guessing here. Even if you could get it out of its pot now and plant it whole, it probably is strangling itself, and you wouldn't be starting out your bog in the best way.
Even if you got adventuresome and dug out a big section out of the pot and planted that now, you couldn't be sure that you were getting a good tuber, plus, it might spend the rest of the summer using up its food to try to grow new leaves........leaving nothing for next spring.
Unless an expert can come around and say otherwise, I think you have 2 options: Continue to fertilize it in the pot this summer. Then in late fall, you could try to get it out of the pot, and plant a really good tuber down in the soil. Or........(and I would vote for this option), wait until next spring and then harvest the best tuber and plant it. This would require you, though, to protect the lotus in its pot during the winter (at least that would be so in my zone (5)). I bury some of my lotus in the ground and they do fine.
I know you're anxious to get your lotus bog going, but I think waiting until next spring to harvest and plant a tuber is going to give you the best growth next summer.
Don't forget to tell us the size of your pot and how long its been growing.
Is there any way you can gently squeeze your hands in around the entire lotus and pull it out of the pot? I'm thinking since its a dwarf, you probably have it in a small pot.