Which Lotus is it that you've got? My "babies" are out in full sun for most of the day now. There's plenty of room for good air circulation and they're quite okay. I don't think keeping them in shade for long would be good.

tropic,

honestly, i don't know exactly what kind of lotus they are. I bought them off of Amazon for 6.00 for 10 seeds. They are advertised as Sapphire lotus. They are lotus seeds, they are both sprouting, one has it's little hook growing. Are there different kinds of lotus? Like waterlilies, they have tropical and hardy. I will post a pic when it gets all it's leaves and you can see what kind it resembles.

I was planning on mixing some composted cow manure with regular heavy garden soil and putting one lotus each into some Home Depo buckets. I'm going to put them in sun then, and see how it goes. After the little hook stem grows a little more, probably this week.

Well, after doing some research, it looks like this is the blue lotus, the warm season one, tropical, not hardy. So, I'll see if they grow and I'll be back in the fall to see if I should save them for the winter. I'm a little disappointed, I was hoping it was the hardy one.

That makes it a bit more interesting. The "Blue Lotus" is normally considered a waterlily rather than a lotus, that is Nymphaea caerulea. Lotus are in the genus Nelumbo. Of course to make it more interesting, there is a genus "Lotus" which isn't related to either of those.

The lotuses, as in Nelumbo, have leaves which rise well above the water whether sparse or crowded. Only seedling Nelumbo have floating leaves. Nymphaea normally only have floating leaves. The flowers are also quite different. Nelumbo seed are around pea sized. Nymphaea are very small, sort of sesame seed size but rounded.

I don't think any of the Nelumbo flowers are blue or anything approaching blue. In Nymphaea species blue is a very common colour.

Lotus is a common name not a scientific one for these plants so correctness isn't an issue. It's more a matter of common usage. But problems can arise when you look for information on them using common names, you sometimes can't be sure which one the information refers to.

The "Blue Lotus", Nymphaea caerulea, naturally ranges across the whole of Africa, including southern Africa which is well outside of the tropics. So it's tropical and non-tropical.

I don't know which zones there are in South Africa, but I think zone 8 might be the very lowest. On that basis I don't think you'll have any problems if you're careful with it.

Thank you Tropic. I'm going to see what happens. I think next year I will buy a good hardy American lotus rhizone, for out back in my mini pond. But, now I am curious to see what it looks like when it blooms.

tropic,

I read your post this morning and ordered 3 seeds of the yellow flowered American lotus. They have them on Ebay. I am also growing the tropical lily, because it is growing. But I really wanted a regular lotus. Thank you for helping me buy the right seeds.

I started a number of seeds this spring (source was random hobby shop dried seedhead). My original plan was to grow seedlings in 5gal buckets but I put them in mixing bowls instead, giving most of them away and transferring the rest to a 20" pot with about 3-4" water. I started mine in water (ours is unchlorinated) indoors in April about a month before weather was warm enough to let them live outside which seemed a bit too early (2-3 weeks might have been better). I had them in essentially full sun as soon as they were out and they seemed to like it (I hadn't read the cautions against full sun). In the 20" pot they're universally thriving except for the one where the seed got pulled out of the dirt - they keep putting out larger floating leaves but they haven't put up aerial leaves yet.

Early on, I had problems with some of the leaves mysteriously shriveling or pinching off - those seemed largely ones where the early leaves were lifted out of the water before opening so I suspected drying might be an issue. The reading I had done said that as long as the tubers don't freeze, lotus generally overwinter well - hopefully I won't be disappointed in this.

laiquatan,

Thanks for sharing your story. It is encouraging to hear your lotus seeds are doing good. I think the seeds I had were lotus after all. They look exactly like lotus leaves, and now one of them as 4 leaves. The other one has 3. I transferred them to big black round rope handled pots I bought at Walmart cheap, and they seem to be growing.

I also ordered American lotus seeds online and scored one of them, and it is starting to open also. So, if it grows I will have 3 of them, or at least I hope so.

Since I don't have an idea what kind of lotus seeds I originally planted, I will have to wait and see the color of flower I guess, next year, if it lives through the winter.

I love the lotus plants and flowers, and growing them from seeds is actually fun. I can't wait til the aireal leaves appear, I think they are cool.

Let me know how your seedlings do this summer, just curious.