hello. a #LotusWatch thread on lotus growth at chez qinzi. mostly bc of and featuring my father. let’s call him fuqin. (说中文的，好玩儿吗？哈哈哈.父亲. 哈哈哈）it is mostly his work anyway. “I want to make Lotus Pier!” he cries. this is not the first year he’s tried for lotus.

entirely encouraged by @yubinbaobei so credit to her and also this wine i’m drinking for making me go: ah yes, a #LotusWatch thread is a great idea for someone who already talks so goddamn much

so, a brief background. there are currently two locations lotus is being grown. in a small bowl on the countertop, and a BIG BOY POT on the deck. there used to be some in the pond out back but we share it and fuqin was worried it would get too invasive (silly bc pretty but w/e)

(actually, those pond roots were uhhh... not at all taken from a trip to china! not at all! who has heard of silly things like just straight up putting the root in your carry on!)

last year the BIG BOY POT lotuses were accidentally killed because he gave them some fertilizer in the hopes it would make them grow faster, so we have 0 promises it will grow this year

except: he bought lotus root (the type, you know, for cooking) from the local asian store and planted it in there in hopes it will grow, so. we’ll see!

so, update for early may! counter seeds are germinating, root is in the BIG BOY POT (and BIG BOY POT is brought out of the basement where it’s been hibernating where it’s warm this past winter)

...yes, he did put a rocking chair next to the BIG BOY POT just to have a place to sit next to it, as he goes out and looks almost every day.

yes i AM realizing fuqin lives in wei wuxian vibes even though he is self-proclaimed “the same as lan wangji” which is very fake

this tweet tbd but that's the updates for now. very soon we should have signs of life from the countertop seeds, at the very least. the BIG BOY POT root will probably be pushed down to the mud soon. that's #LotusWatch for now

Hello everyone! Funny story, but tweeting this thread seems to have given the seeds the encouragement they needed! After a few weeks soaking.... one began to sprout today! Woohoo! What will tomorrow bring? #LotusWatch

you may not know it, but lotuses are both very hardy and very fragile. these seeds have been sitting in storage for AT LEAST three years, maybe more, since we had them but we also had the pond roots, which we are not growing this year. they are supposed to be diff petal colors!

(idk, these too also definitely weren’t sm*ggled from china. i wouldn’t know anything about that.)

the BIG BOY POT demonstrates the fragility, though. it cannot get too cold, nor extraordinarily warm (which is why it has been living in the basement, but specifically the guest bedroom). there’s also a bubbler so that the water is not too still or too active!