Fishkeeping - Grow lotus plants from seed purchased at your local dried flower store.

Greetings.

This worked for me about 10 years ago when I had ponds... I have since
moved and not had a pond since the late 90's.

At your local florist or craft store that carries dried flower
arrangements look for the large seed pods of lotus plants with the
seeds still in the pods.

These will grow for you in your pond with a little patience and a hack
saw ( believe it, or not ).

Extact the seed and cut away the very hard outer shell but be very
careful not to injure the soft peanut like material inside. There are
two halves on the inside which look just like a typical peanut except
between the halves is a small green shoot... which is the baby lotus
in partial growth.

I put these shelled seeds in a glass of water, fully submerged, and
placed the glass on my kitchen window sill. Days later, the tiny
green shoot began to grow.

It continued to grow on my window sill until I felt it was able to be
planted in a flower pot. I used a typical mix that pond plants come
with and put fish tank gravel and small round stones as a top cover in
the pot.

I then sunk the pot in the pond just below the water line and let
nature take its course. I even let it winter over in the pond and the
pond would freeze since our winters reach down to zero degrees.

The plant came back 3 years in row but never flowered in that space of
time... I had since moved and left it behind for the new owners. The
leaves got to be diner plate size however.

It was a fun experiment which I'll try again someday. Lotus plants
sell for 40 dollars around here... the seed pod coats a dollar and
theres at least a dozen seeds in each. Good luck !

I