Testing the Waters
 Abby Jane Brody and Maria Barbaccia Photos
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(8/26/2008) The grass is always greener, isn’t it?
The hardy lotus, Nelumbo, is exotic and exquisite. In bud, white petals edged with pink; the open flower a white porcelain goblet, sometimes with a splash of red, and finally its unique seed head, a favorite with flower arrangers.
It is one of the highlights of August at the LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton. Every day for weeks on end, dozens of buds unfurl into glistening goblets. Shouldn’t we be satisfied?
We were. But that was before last summer, when we visited Chanticleer, outside of Philadelphia, where a double, bicolored cream and pink, hardy lotus graces the pond garden. We returned several times during the day to gaze longingly as the flowers changed color. It opens a very rich double pink and over a three-day period changes to creamy yellow flushed with pink.
Its name is Mrs. Perry D. Slocum, and Jack Larsen and I decided on the spot that we had to have it.
Turning to the Internet, I learned that Mrs. Perry is the most popular hardy lotus in the United States, and I stumbled onto a wholesale grower, Texas Water Lilies (texaswaterlilies.com) that also sells retail by mail order. My first question, when I reached them by phone, was why were their plants so inexpensive, compared with the prices of other suppliers?
Rusty had no answer. They were sold out when I first contacted them, but I was told they would be ready to take orders for the next season beginning in December. (The Web site davesgarden.com has a section called Garden Watchdog devoted to customer reviews, which overwhelmingly praise the quality of Texas Water Lily’s plants and customer service.)
Looking through the hardy lotus photos on the Texas Water Lilies site, a double, deep-pink-to-red lotus named Momobotan (strange, because tree peonies in Japan are called botan) proved irresistible. Rusty figuratively held my hand to get me started in water gardening, and I only ordered two plants.
It was easy. At least during their first, get-acquainted year, we decided to grow them in separate containers. At Lynch’s I found 14-inch plastic basins with no drainage holes designed for water plants.
I combined topsoil with compost to make a heavy and rich mix, and filled the containers about two-thirds from the top. The rather brittle tubers should be handled carefully, so as not to break the growing tips; press them into the soil with the growing tips at soil level. Finally, I filled the containers to the top with water and kept them in a sunny spot on my terrace to keep a close eye on them and keep the water level up.
Lotus require heat to flower (several weeks with temperatures above 80 degrees), and not much happened until late June, early July. Rather than press special fertilizer tablets into the soil once a month, I fertilized every other week in a futile attempt to push them into flowering early .
When the plants were in active growth with many leaves, both pots were ready for LongHouse. The pot with the smaller Momobotan was placed in an ornamental, bronze Indian rice bowl outside the summer pavilion, where it began flowering in early August.
The giant leaves of the much larger Mrs. Perry D. Slocum nearly doubled in height after putting it in the much deeper fountain. It hasn’t flowered yet, but the water in the fountain basin is much cooler; apparently some lotus varieties require a year or two before blooming.
Aside from enjoying the flowers, what happens next? The water will be drained from the smaller plant and it will be brought into a cool space for the winter. Mrs. Perry may spend the winter outdoors.
There is an excellent Web site (victoria-adventure.org/lotus) devoted to growing and caring for lotus, including how to winter them over.
There are only two species of lotus, N. lutea, native to the eastern United States, and N. nucifera, distributed from the Caspian Sea to Japan, China, and Vietnam, south to Malaysia, New Guinea, and Australia. There are more than 600 named cultivars.
Perry D. Slocum, who died four years ago at 91, came from a farm outside Cortland, in upstate New York. He grew his first water lilies at age 13 and became one of the great hybridizers of water lilies and lotus, dropping out of medical school in the mid-1930s to devote himself to them. In 1964 he crossed N. lutea with the pink double N. Rosea Plena, creating Mrs. Perry D. Slocum.
This first adventure with water plants has been interesting and rewarding. Who knows what is next: tropical lotus and water lilies? Bog-loving pitcher plants?