I have heard yall say many times never plant lotus in anything but round containers. I thought I was doing okay when I dug the lotus pond. I made it long and narrow but mostly rounded on the ends. I used a liner and due to the odd shape I had lots of folds in the liner. I also used the berms/edges as a bog and planted tons of nice plants to hide the sides.
Last year the monster lotus took off quick and put up a few huge leaves, One huge flower all within weeks then just died all summer.. I thought it was gone. Now I think I know why.. I was digging some bog plants to trade with some of yall last week and I noticed a lotus shooting trying to come up in the very corner between the actual folds of the liner and all the bog plants. I undug all the plants there moved the dirt and the lotus was all in the corner and sending up repeated shoots there that could go nowhere.. So I took out all the dirt and plants on the side of my whole bog, I have one small part left with plants on the edges, and I freed the tuber that was stuck in the corner. Now the lotus runs the entire lenght of the pond so maybe that is why she died back last year. I have made a temporary hole in the ground with a black plastic liner for my bog plants.. gotta figure out what to do with them now and now my bog is ugly....
tinkster