How to grow bowl lotus hydroponically? A step-by-step guide

Because of its small size, the bowl lotus does not need a large container or much space when grown, making it a commonly chosen variety for home plants. The bowl lotus has large, brightly colored flowers and a far-reaching delicate fragrance, with extremely strong adaptability; it can also be grown in pots and cut for vases, and in modern landscape gardening it is increasingly favored and more widely used.

1. Sowing

(1) Time:

Any season, but the water temperature must be above 16°C.

(2) Seeds:

The lotus seed shell is hard, so it must be manually nicked before soaking. One end of the lotus seed has a small pointed tip, and the other end has a small dent. Rub the end with the small dent against rough cement ground until a layer of skin is worn through. Be careful not to damage the kernel inside, and do not remove the shell. The purpose of rubbing the skin is to let water seep in through this opening, causing the seed to absorb water and swell.

(3) Soaking the seeds:

Place the already shell-nicked seeds in warm water at 20-40 degrees, changing the water every 1-2 days; they generally sprout after 3-5 days. Promptly remove lotus seeds that produce white foam and cannot sprout or emerge. Generally, under suitable external conditions, seeds that still do not sprout after more than 7 days will no longer sprout. Seeds without the ability to sprout often float to the water surface, with yellowed embryos and cotyledons that rot and stink.

(4) Transplanting the sprouts:

Choose a 45cm-75cm bottomless ceramic pot or plastic flower pot, add half a pot of garden soil or river-pond mud free of chemical pollution, and soak with water two weeks in advance; do not fertilize. Press the fine roots of the small lotus seedlings into the mud, one plant per pot; during transplanting, mix in a small amount of decomposed cake fertilizer liquid or soybean meal or peanut meal as base fertilizer. However, although the bowl lotus is a fertilizer-loving plant, it must not be over-fertilized. Generally, mixing a small amount of cake fertilizer powder and other base fertilizer into the growing soil at planting time can meet its needs for the whole year, and no additional topdressing is needed, so as to avoid excessive vegetative growth.

2. Light

(1) The bowl lotus likes ample sunlight; if it receives less than 4 hours of light per day, it cannot form flower buds.

(2) During the growing period, it should be placed on a sunny balcony or a sunny spot by a windowsill so it receives full sun.

(3) When floating leaves cover the entire pot surface, the floating leaves should also be pressed into the pot mud in time so as not to affect ventilation and light penetration.

(4) The bowl lotus plant is delicate; in summer and early autumn, it needs appropriate shading around midday to avoid direct strong light. If exposed to direct strong light, both leaves and petals are prone to scorching.

3. Pruning

When the leaves grow too many and too dense, some leaves can be appropriately removed to help the plant breathe and ventilate. This also helps flowering. When multiple plants are grown in the same container, if the leaves are found to be competing for sunlight, they should be divided into separate pots in time.

A reminder for friends who love growing bowl lotus: to extend the flowering period, in summer you can use a piece of decomposed cake fertilizer the size of a plum pit as topdressing, tucking it into the mud in the center of the pot. Never apply it around the pot wall. It easily causes root damage. Base fertilizer must not be applied too much, otherwise in mild cases the leaves flourish but flowers are sparse, and in severe cases the seed lotus will be “burned to death.” After a year of cultivation, the bowl lotus has reduced fertility and dense underground rhizomes, so it is best to turn the pot and change the soil each year before germination in early spring.