23 replies to this topic

[gzeiger]

How did these overwinter?

 

Does anyone know another source for tubers? The site linked in an earlier post is sold out, and seems to have specialty varieties - I have my doubts about their cold-hardiness in my northern winters if they've been inbred for color.

[rickwrench]

Overwintering through the 2014 winter in the CA central valley was no problem. The tubs had a layer of ice a couple nights in the morning, but it doesn't get cold enough to freeze much more than a 1/4" layer here.

Year two foliage was similar to year one, but you could tell the soil was burning out toward the end of the 2015 growing season.

After this last winter, just last month, I netted out all the gambusia living in the barrels, moved them to a temporary tub, and dumped the barrels out. There were only about a half a dozen full sized tubers per barrel, plus a bunch of smaller tuberettes with growing tips. I cleaned them off and cut them loose from the root mass. There wasn't much dirt left, mostly roots.

This year I finally tracked down a couple used fruit bins that were in good shape. They are reinforced 5/8" plywood boxes, 4x4 feet by two feet tall. These particular bins are raisin bins, with steel channel along the top edges and stout corner reinforcing blocks.

I glassed and epoxied all the seams and joints, there is no joint movement. Then I sealed the interior wood with epoxy (using a squeegie/spreader). After that, I gave it a light sanding and a thick coat of black liquid EPDM rubber. One bulkhead fitting in the bottom for a drain, when necessarry. The outside will get a couple coats of poly. In progress shots below.

 

Two bins in progress:

 

 

 

Bin inside. Raw plywood, stout corner brace, metal top channel:

 

 

Glassed, EPDM coated. Ready to fill.

 

 

Rick

[Evan P]

Very cool! I've long wanted to grow lotus in my pond, so it is awesome seeing your success!

[gzeiger]

I was certain I'd had the same experience with the seeds, never seeing more than the four embryonic leaves, but yesterday I was rooting through the pots in my little pond for wapato tubers and I found this!

Attached Files

•  Lotus.jpg   62.17KB   0 downloads

[rickwrench]

So...

Four years later:

Fiurst coat of epdm rubber never cured right and I ended up scrubbing out the flakes and using "LiquidRubber" brand liquid rubber. 4 thick coats over two weeks, the a week to cure. No leaks.

 

Lotus in 3 big barrel liner pots, a small planter with some unknown Marsilea species, water hyacinth, water lettuce, cat-tails. Flagfish and gambusia for now.

 

This small lotus project, apparently, has been the catalyst in the re-population of Pacific Chorus Frogs with a few miles of the house. When I first set up the lotus pots, two lonely, sad looking tree frogs got busy and -poof- 50-60 tadpoles. Those in turn bred in the other tubs and later the ag bins. Their offspring have expanded out around the house and downstream in the small irrigation canal. There are tens of thousands now. Spring nights used to be silent, except for the occasional tree frog gulping bull frog in the canal (my guess is that the bull frogs decimated the tree frogs along the canal). A few nights ago, standing in the driveway, I measured 56db average background level. A blanket of white noise from all the frogs. The level at "quiet time" (about 6:30 am) is typical rural silent 18-19db.

 

You can't see them, but there are about 2 dozen tree frogs hidden in the aquatic foliage.

 

 

Still water-tight, still tree frog breeding heaven. Just about time to cull hyacinth, again.

 

Rick

[Michael Wolfe]

Thanks for the update Rick, I loved this project from the beginning and glad that you are so successful with your containers.