I gave my cousin, who lives in a very hot central TX, a lotus for her large koi pond about 5 yrs ago. (she gets full sun at the pond) She has had beautiful foliage for years, but no blooms. They multiply like crazy and have been divided. I checked this site and advised her to fertilize more. No blooms yet. We have experimented with different depths in the pond several pots. This year I told her to "over" fertilize to see what happens.(3 stakes per plant every 2wks)...so far....more beautiful foliage. The regular water lilies are doing great and blooming very well. My Thai friend who grew lotus from seed and for sale had told me about fertilizing....she had blooming lotus in shallow ponds, lotus bowls, and 3 gal buckets all over the yard...all blooming and I know she did not fret this much to get them to bloom. Any ideas? Out of some frustration we threw some left over tubers in a cow pond just to see what will happen...will keep you posted.

I'm back from dinner. It was great visiting with our snowbird friends and we talked for over two hours. We were neighbors when we both lived in the boonies and they moved back to Ohio shortly after we moved. We went on a cruise together with others from the neighborhood and had so much fun with them once. So now we e-mail and get together once a year :-( Dinner--not so good. I ordered the fettucini alfredo with bacon-wrapped sea scallops. The salad that came with it was very good,the scallops cooked just right but the alfredo was disappointing, to say the least. It was a big plate of angel hair pasta with a huge glob of alfredo sauce out of a jar. Ick, ick, ick! What could be easier than alfredo sauce? It's just a little butter, cream, garlic and lots of parmesan. They had little rolls that came with the salad that looked a little like those biscuits at Red Lobster, but were floury and dry. Now I remember why we don't like to eat out. Harry had fried oysters, baked sweet potato and hush puppies. He said on the way home it wasn't very good, but if it's dinner time I swear that man would eat plastic! Guess we won't be eating there again any time soon!

I cooked that spiral ham. Along with that was mashed potatoes and beets. Anytime I send Bobby to the garage to get a vegetable either from the freezer or canned on the shelf I can be assured he is going to come in with beets. LOL After dinner I cut the meat off the bone and packaged it for the freezer. Got six packs of meat and a big pack with the bone and the juice from the pan the ham cooked in. Looking forward to 15 bean soup in the near future.

Thanks for the confirmation. I'm pretty convinced that's what we were sold. Noticed it is much easier to start from seed than a. tuberosa, which is apparently another clue it's tropical. Nice plant in spite of the sap hazard. We've never had reason trim them, so not much risk - but always good to be aware. One of our "anywhere, anyhow, anytime" plants is Zexmenia. A consistent, though not prolific, bloomer that continues to look good on only rain water once established. Can be used in sun or shade. Not the best photo, but shows lantana and salvia growing through its fairly dense cover.