I bought a lotus about 3 years ago. People told me that it was super hard to propagate since they were so finicky and that it would not do well in full sun and that I had to shield it from the stark midday rays. And indeed they seemed to be right. It did not do well in my mostly full sun pond. So, I moved the container to a little corner of the pond with lots of deep shade in the morning. It seemed to do ok for a little while before going dormant for the winter.A couple of months later in late winter I could not find it in that dark corner of the pond. When I hauled the container out of the pond it ended up being empty. 🙁 The lotus seemed to have gone. All that was in there was that pesky weedy aquatic grass and some snails. I was pretty disappointing really. I had spent a lot of money on that plant. Oh well, I thought, I have a lovely pond with lots of water lilies, so what.

Well by mid spring I was singing a different tune of amazement and surprise when I saw the first sprouts of lotus leaves surface in that dark corner of the pond. What??? Where was this coming from? I had all the intentions of investigating this mystery further but life got busy and I didn’t get a chance to look. By the end of summer I had lovely lotus blooms all over that corner of the pond. Well it turns out it had spread it’s tuberous ‘wings’ to everywhere there happened to be some pond muck at the bottom of the pond and that corner seemingly had a LOT of it.

Well this year we have 2 lotus plants. One where I had taken an offset from the escaped lotus and planted it with my Texas star. I didn’t think that would take off either because at the beginning of the year all I saw was a rotting tuber sticking out of the container. I shrugged my shoulders and moved on. I guess propagating lotus plants IS very hard. Hah! not so fast nature answered back. Not one month later, there appeared from that same container 3 huge leaves, and not too long after that not one but two stunning flower heads.

2 lotus blooms and a waterlily in the middle

Now I warn anybody that buys a lotus that they had better watch out, they are so vigorous that you may want to keep an eye on them overtaking your entire pond.

They are lovely though. Such a delicate looking flower.

It is a mystery that such a strong, beautiful plant springs up from the murkiest and stinkiest muddy depths of a body of water. (Yes there are sections in my pond that probably fit that description.)

The petals change color as the bloom opens and matures: Appearing from the watery depths, a tight green bundle serves as a valuable perch for a dragonfly keeping cool and hunting in the midday sun…..to a pretty baby pink as it starts to bud and open…..,

turning toward yellow and ….

finally to white before …..

it fades away. But not before grabbing our attention with an alien looking seed head just before being swallowed by the water once again.

Wildlife has some use for it too, it seems:

A dragon fly gets to use his seed head megaphone.

Bees visit it for it’s nectar.

And frogs worship it from their pad.

But what a majestic beauty it is in full bloom with the Texas star from the dining room window,or even just sneaking a peak out from behind the red Canna.