The following pages document my very first experience with lotus, one that I expected to end in failure, but instead exceeded my wildest dreams.
Knowing nothing about aquatic plants, but having a vague idea that it might be nice to have a water garden, several years ago I visited a pond supply establishment, and came away with a burning ember embedded in my soul to one day have a lotus plant. That ember was fanned into a flame by subsequent visits to the place, and by a friend's acquisition of, and success with a "Chawan Basu."
In the fall of 2002 I embarked on building a pond, and at the same time got five seeds of a "Perry's Giant Sunburst," which I thought would be fun to try germinating. I certainly didn't expect to get far with these seeds, but always enjoying a challenge I did my research (see the particularly helpful links below), and went for it. The experiment's progress is shown in the following pages: