Still hiding in the air conditioning as the dastardly duo- crabgrass and wiregrass- quickly consume my gardens. But I peeked outside for a lovely surprise this morning-my lotus has a flower bud! Now, the backstory on this lotus is that I purchased a dozen mixed lotus seeds online from an ebay seller back in late January. Well, of the dozen seeds, only one germinated and the others rotted. My guess is that the seeds were either too immature or had been improperly stored, cause lotus seeds do not tend to loose much viability over time. The seller from Thailand, whom had also sold me a bag of waterlily seeds that also failed to germinate, did not answer my emails and soon after the account was closed. They probably opened under a new username, but that's ebay for yah. Well, at least I got one seedling out of the ordeal! Considering that I germinated it in the beginning of February, and it stayed in a cup with water and diluted fertilizer until at least mid April, I did not expect much from it. It was barely growing, until I planted it in a plastic barrel filled with dirt and water.
Here is the plant at six months old. I have to thank fertilizer tablets for the impressive growth- about two little tabs every three weeks or so once it started actually growing. I was told not to expect any flowers for two to three years, but lo and behold, today I found this little bud hiding underneath a leaf!
I am pretty excited and can't wait for it to bloom- which may take two to three weeks. But I am so happy that it looks like it is going to turn out pink or red- not that I don't like the white and yellow lotus varieties, but dark pink/red varieties are my favorite. Hopefully my next attempts will have a higher success rate!
