How to Grow Potted Lotus? Planting Methods and Cultivation Management Tips
:Lotus, also known as the sacred lotus, belongs to the family Nymphaeaceae and the genus Nelumbo, and is one of China's top ten famous flowers. The lotus is an aquatic plant and cannot be separated from water throughout its entire growth cycle. The Beijing area is relatively short of water, so lotus grown in courtyards is mostly potted. To grow potted lotus well, you need to master the following key points.
The choice of potting soil and base fertilizer must be careful. The best potting soil for planting lotus is a clay loam rich in humus, which should be sieved to remove impurities, the finer the better. As for the choice of base fertilizer, horse hoof pieces have lasting fertility but release slowly, generally taking 1 to 2 years to fully decompose; processed chicken manure has moderate fertility and can be mixed into the soil in proportion; hoof and horn meal, soybean meal and the like can also be used where conditions permit. For top dressing during cultivation, sesame paste residue rich in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium can be used, applied regularly during the growth stage according to the strength of growth and the size of the pot, to supplement the insufficient fertility of potted plants in the later stage.
Potted lotus should be divided every year. In the Beijing area, dividing around April 5 each year is appropriate. When dividing, record the variety and number to avoid mixing them up. For containers, you can choose clay pots, porcelain pots, plastic pots and other types. The number of seed lotus rhizomes to plant depends on the size of the container; generally a container with a diameter of 40 to 50 cm can hold 2 medium-sized healthy seed rhizomes.
The growing spot for potted lotus should be sheltered from the wind and facing the sun, with sufficient water, and the placement position should be determined before planting, so as to avoid moving them back and forth and affecting the sprouting and growth of the seed rhizomes.
For seed rhizomes, choose healthy daughter rhizomes with plump terminal buds and no rot or damage, preferably with 2 to 3 nodes. When planting, dig the soil along the wall of the pot, place the seed rhizome with its head facing down at a 30-degree acute angle, and cover with soil shallowly rather than deeply, just enough to fix the seed rhizome in place; at the same time, the "tail" of the seed rhizome should be left exposed, to facilitate sprouting and the running of rhizomes. After planting, the first watering should be thorough, but not too much. In May in Beijing, the maximum temperature is around 20°C; to raise the water temperature, the water depth should be 5 cm above the potting soil, and it can be gradually deepened as the temperature rises. In the hot summer, the water should be filled to the brim, even watered twice a day. Watering should be done in the morning and evening, avoiding watering at noon.
In the Beijing area, June is the beginning of the flowering period for lotus, late June to early August is the full flowering period, in September the lotus begins to form rhizomes and store nutrients to prepare for overwintering, and in October the stems and leaves in the pot begin to turn yellow, and the yellow leaves can be cut off in due course. Before winter in the Beijing area, the seed rhizomes must be stored to prevent frost damage. The storage site can be a cold cellar or a cold shed; the potting soil should be kept moist and not frozen, with the temperature controlled between 0°C and 4°C, which can keep the seed rhizomes intact.
Planting Techniques for Potted Lotus
With the improvement of living standards, more and more people are starting to grow various plants on balconies. Today the editor brings you several methods for growing potted lotus on balconies, hoping to help everyone.
I. Method of Potting Seed Rhizomes
Potting seed rhizomes can maintain the basic characteristics of the original variety. The technical key points are:
(1) Choose free-flowering potted varieties. Such as Yu Wan, Hong Tashan, Fen Xiuzhen, Zhuo Shang Zhen, Hong Mudan, Xiao Yinqiu and others. These varieties flower early, abundantly and for a long time in pots.
(2) Choose pots and prepare soil. Choose ceramic pots, plastic pots, bonsai pots and the like that are attractive in appearance and convenient to move and place. A pot with a diameter and height of 18-28 cm is fine; small pots are exquisite and quaint, while large pots have lush leaves and even more flowers. Carefully seal the drainage hole at the bottom of the pot with cement; it must not leak. For potting soil, you can use farmland soil or river-pond mud free of chemical pollution, and soak it with water 2 weeks in advance for later use.
(3) Plant at the right time. In the south, it can be done in early to mid-March, while in the north it can be postponed to after mid-April. In recent years, Liujia Garden in Anhui has used plastic film covering, advancing both the planting time and the start of flowering by 3-4 weeks; the method is simple and the effect is remarkable.
(4) Do not apply base fertilizer at the initial planting. Place the tip of the rhizome slanting downward at the bottom of the pot, plant only one per pot, add 12-15 cm of river-pond mud or garden soil so that the small rhizome is completely buried in the mud, and add water to 2-3 cm below the rim of the pot. After the standing leaves emerge from the water, a small amount of plant cake fertilizer and compound fertilizer can be applied as top dressing.
(5) Potted lotus must be placed in a ventilated, sunny spot; lotus grows rapidly in fine, mild weather. Planted in early April, buds appear successively from late May, and by early to mid-June it enters the full flowering period; the flowering period of the colony can last until early to mid-September.
(6) Potted lotus basically has no diseases, but in poorly ventilated places or near vegetable gardens and orchards, it is prone to aphid infestation in the early stage. You can use laundry detergent diluted 600-800 times with water and spray it to kill them on contact. In recent years, Liujia Garden in Anhui has used plastic film to cover the whole pot and flowers together, using the midday sunlight to steam and kill the pests. The degree of sealing and the duration should be flexibly controlled according to the intensity of sunlight. This method kills pests thoroughly without pesticide pollution, is simple to operate, and also promotes lotus growth, achieving two goals at once.
II. Sowing Seeds in Pots
Choose plump, mature, glossy lotus seeds of the free-flowering type suitable for potting. Sowing can be done from April to June. First, manually crack the shell of the lotus seeds. A lotus seed has one pointed end and one concave end; grind the concave end on rough cement ground or crack it with the jaws of pliers, then soak the seeds in a thermos with warm water at 20-30°C. Change the water twice a day, and they will sprout within 1 week. After sprouting, transfer them to a pot with an appropriate amount of water and place it in a wind-sheltered, sunny spot. After 2 weeks, fine roots grow and the floating leaves are like threads; at this point they can be potted, one seed per pot, and by early to mid-June of that year buds appear and flowering begins.
III. Off-Season Potting
In August-September, choose lotus seeds of late-flowering potted lotus that flowers easily and has relatively strong cold resistance, sow and raise seedlings, and after dividing and planting, place the flowers in a plastic solar greenhouse, with the temperature inside controlled between 20-30°C. When winter comes, use a flat mirror or aluminum foil to form a semicircular reflective surface placed on the north side of the flower pot, reflecting sunlight onto the leaves and water surface to strengthen the light, so that the lotus blooms from New Year's Day to the Spring Festival; celebrating the New Year with lotus makes it feel all the more precious and intimate.
All three of the above methods can very effectively let you grow sturdy, healthy potted lotus on your balcony. While enjoying the flowers and results, don't forget to go outside for a stroll too.
Key Points for Fertilizing Potted Lotus
Base Fertilizer If you want lotus to bloom well, animal phosphorus and potassium fertilizer is indispensable. In the Beijing area, the traditional method of applying base fertilizer is to put 500 g of hoof pieces into a clay pot with a diameter of 50 cm as base fertilizer. For household flower growing or large-scale potted lotus production nurseries, the cost is too high and not very applicable, forcing people to abandon this traditional practice.
The author has tested putting pig trotter shells directly at the bottom of the pot as base fertilizer, with good results; the drawback is that it takes a long time to decompose and tends to give off a bad smell. Later, based on the characteristics of animal phosphorus and potassium fertilizer, the author directly purchased bone meal, an additive used in feed, as base fertilizer in large-scale production. When filling the pot with soil, first put in the bottom soil, then add a certain amount of bone meal according to the size and texture of the pot, achieving obvious results.
Top Dressing After applying sufficient base fertilizer, in the early stage after planting the seed rhizomes, generally no top dressing is needed; only during the vigorous growth period is it necessary to apply additional fertilizer according to leaf color and the growth of the lotus. Top dressing is mainly based on fast-acting urea and potassium dihydrogen phosphate.
Fertilizer Amount Fertilizing potted lotus must be handled flexibly. Besides the size of the pot, you should also refer to the different nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium contents of the substrate used, and must not rigidly copy books. If loam or plain soil is used as the growing substrate for lotus, generally speaking, for a container with a diameter of 50 cm to 60 cm, in addition to 500 g to 800 g of bone meal as base fertilizer, because the soil fertility is relatively poor, a small amount of organic compound fertilizer should also be mixed in when filling the soil. For a container with a diameter of 30 cm to 40 cm, about 250 g of bone meal can be applied. Going smaller still, No. 3 pots with a diameter of 25 cm and No. 4 pots with a diameter of 20 cm should all have the amount reduced according to the actual situation. In actual operation, it is very difficult for workers to apply top dressing according to how many grams per pot. Therefore, the author often uses a five-finger pinch as the standard: a small pinch grabbed with five fingers is suitable for top dressing a No. 1 pot, a four-finger pinch is suitable for a No. 2 pot, and a three-finger pinch is suitable for a No. 3 pot. This is both easy to grasp and unlikely to cause fertilizer damage.
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