From the lotuses up on the balcony I move to those down below, which have also done splendidly. Not those in the garden, where several plants I put in only displayed the flowers I had brought along, or at most produced a couple more blossoms; but the new pond by the garage. I suppose I should not be upset by the failure of the plants put in ponds in the garden to perform for sun is limited there, but here by the garage there is plenty of sun.

The first one or two plants I put there flowered and then died away, but finally the one I kept there in the basin in which I had bought it did brilliantly, and produced four blossoms one after the other. I have shown these before, so will just show one of these lotuses, along with some of the fish in the pond. 

Just as the last of the four was fading there sprang up towards the further edge of the pond from my seat a bud. It was under the netting there and I thought it would not get through and wondered about moving the net, but on the very next day, well before I thought it would blossom, it had made its way through the net and burst into flower.

It was a beautiful purple and I could not for the life of me remember when I had put the plant in. Janaki thought it was after the white ones in the basin, but that could not have been the case for I would not have bought a plant without a flower. So I assume it was one of the earlier plants which I thought had died away, which had suddenly decided to produce blossoms. This I know has happened in the ponds in the garden, though sadly the most recent example drooped when it had just begun to open.

I had noticed earlier that, when these low lying lotuses succeeded, there were often four blossoms in succession. This had happened in the smaller pond on the balcony, though I think the plant that flowered previously in the one by the garage produced one or two more. Anyway, whatever the truth of my theory, this plant produced four purple blossoms one after the other. And surprisingly the third was followed almost immediately by a fourth, so that for the first time there have been two new flowers together.

I show them together, close up so they look quite wonderful, and then I show them from the other side of the partition between the pond and the basin for flowers, soon after I had planted a rose plant there with two vibrant blossoms. But before that I show the single blossoms that had appeared earlier.