德国 睡莲农场 Seerosenfarm – 睡莲与荷花四百余种及栽培知识

一家干了二十年的家族苗圃

这是家族买卖。2002 年，克里斯蒂安·齐林斯基-迈耶（Christian Zilinski-Meyer）在外祖母埃莉位于格罗斯-里茨的菜园里种下第一批睡莲，他父亲在园中挖了水池，他就在里面养最早的红睡莲。他的本行是柏林一家酒店的经营管理，育种只在下班以后干；丈夫尼克（Nick Zilinski）帮着打包发货，老太太管着场地。2016 年德国的 MAZ 报去采访，写他是勃兰登堡仅有的两位专业睡莲育种者之一。

苗圃如今在波茨坦附近的兰格维希（Langerwisch），一点二公顷的地皮上盖着五座温室，室外摆满水盆和池塘。店里睡莲（Nymphaea）有一百五十多个品种，荷花（Nelumbo）两百个，总数超过四百种，其中三百五十多个是兰格维希这块地里自己育出来的。2024 年勃兰登堡园艺业协会在村口池塘边办睡莲季开幕，还把当年新命名的耐寒睡莲叫做「纪念卡尔·弗斯特」（Andenken an Karl Foerster），记的是那位波茨坦的多年生植物老手。

四百个品种是怎么育出来的

自育的路子很笨也扎实：授粉用刷子，移苗用牙签，荷花的硬籽得先用锉刀磨开口再下播。一个苗季试下来要过两百多个杂交苗，通过的才拿去卖。荷花这边标着「勃兰登堡制造」（Made in Brandenburg）的意思是自家地里长出来的，不是转口货。

目录分得很细：热带睡莲单列，日开和夜开分开；耐寒睡莲按株形和需要的水深排，另有澳大利亚系和杂交亚属（ISG）一类；荷花按大小和花色分，还另设「中国进口 2026」一类。除了睡莲荷花，店里还有兰花的自有收藏、缓释肥料和一份睡莲栽植说明。

改版后的知识站讲了什么

seerosenfarm.de 前几年改版，现在做的是知识站，不再直接卖货；卖苗的搬到 lotusland.de。分工写在首页上：这边讲知识，那边卖植物。站点分成睡莲基础、耐寒睡莲、热带睡莲和荷花四块，每块下面挂具体文章。

文章写得实在。耐寒睡莲要越冬，水深一般得六十到八十厘米，寒冷地区最好八十到一百厘米，根茎不能冻透；浅塘会冻到底，那种塘得把苗先沉到深水区，或者搬到不结冰的地方过冬。热带睡莲怕冷，要么当一年生养，要么进暖房。开花要每天六到八小时直射光，选苗先看水深，再看株形。

买苗怎么走、荷花怎么起名

买苗的规矩有点特别：只做预付（Vorkasse），钱在周五银行关门前到账，下周一才发货；跨行转账慢的话，到账可能要等三天。某个品种断货时，他们会换一个相近的品种顶上，除非订单里写明不要。运费是带单号的三点七五欧元保价件，欧洲一长串国家免运费。发货时间跟着植物走，睡莲要等到安全抽芽，荷花要等气温稳下来。

荷花还能玩一场仪式：买一株荷花，给它起个名字，证书上印上照片和名字，这个名字同时登记进中国的荷花品种名录，跟这一株就此绑在一起。仪式分三档：Deluxe 配香槟一百九十九欧元、配苹果汁一百七十九欧元，命名完还能在苗圃里走一圈荷花；light 版一百五十九和一百三十九欧元，植株留在苗圃，你偶尔去看看；套装一百八十九和一百五十九欧元，一株没开花的荷花加一小瓶香槟直接寄到家，人不来也行。只在六月到八月花开的时候办得了。

金牌和那些挑剔的客户

2021 年在埃尔夫特办的联邦园艺展（BUGA）上，这家苗圃拿了四块金牌，四个门类分别是宿根植物、热带睡莲、耐寒睡莲和荷花。他们的植物进过联邦总理府、柏林阿德隆酒店和柏林电影节的场地，电影《疾速追杀4》里也有他们的睡莲。2021 年他们成了柏林皇家园林学院（Königliche Gartenakademie）的供货商，先试单再续下去。

报道过他们的媒体不少：MAZ 报 2016 年，花园电台（Gartenradio）2017 年，《法兰克福汇报》（FAZ）2021 年，2024 年还有 rbb 的《花园时间》（Gartenzeit）和勃兰登堡天线。苗圃本身是国际睡莲与水景园艺协会（IWGS）的会员。花园电台那期节目里说得挺妙：土地是埃莉的，主意是克里斯蒂安的，尼克负责把苗打包装上车。

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A Family Nursery at Work for Twenty Years

This is a family business. In 2002 Christian Zilinski-Meyer grew his first water lilies in his grandmother Elli’s kitchen garden at Groß-Rietz; his father dug the pond and he raised the first red lilies in it. His day job was running a Berlin hotel, and breeding only happened after hours. His husband Nick helps pack and ship, and his grandmother looks after the site. When the MAZ newspaper visited in 2016 it wrote that he was one of only two professional water lily breeders in Brandenburg.

The nursery now sits in Langerwisch near Potsdam, with five greenhouses on 1.2 hectares and tubs and ponds outside. The shop carries over 150 varieties of water lily (Nymphaea) and 200 of lotus (Nelumbo), more than four hundred in all, and roughly 350 of those are bred and multiplied on the Langerwisch plot itself. In 2024 the Brandenburg gardening association opened the water lily season at the village pond and named that year’s new hardy lily ‘Andenken an Karl Foerster’, after the well-known perennial gardener from Potsdam.

How Four Hundred Varieties Were Bred

The breeding is laborious rather than clever: flowers are pollinated with a brush, seedlings are pricked out with a toothpick, and the hard lotus seeds are filed open before sowing. Over two hundred seedlings of different crosses are tested in a season, and only those that make the grade are offered for sale. The lotus sold under the ‘Made in Brandenburg’ label is grown on their own ground rather than imported.

The catalogue is finely divided. Tropical water lilies have their own section, with day and night bloomers kept apart. Hardy water lilies are sorted by growth and by the depth they need, with a separate group for Australian types and for inter-subgeneric hybrids (ISG). Lotus is sorted by size and colour, with a ‘China Import 2026’ section of its own. Alongside the water plants the shop keeps its own orchid collection, long-term fertilizer and a planting guide for water lilies.

What the Rebuilt Knowledge Site Covers

The seerosenfarm.de site was rebuilt a few years ago and now carries knowledge rather than selling plants; the shop moved to lotusland.de. The division is stated plainly on the front page: knowledge here, plants there. The site is split into water lily basics, hardy water lilies, tropical water lilies and lotus, with articles under each heading.

The articles are practical. Hardy water lilies need a water depth of sixty to eighty centimetres to overwinter, and eighty to a hundred in very cold regions, because the rhizome must not freeze solid. Shallow ponds freeze to the bottom, so the baskets either get lowered into a deeper part of the pond or moved to a frost-free winter quarters. Tropical water lilies cannot take cold and are either grown as seasonal plants or kept under cover. For good flowering they want six to eight hours of direct sun a day, and when choosing a lily, look at the depth first and the growth habit second.

Ordering, Shipping and Naming a Lotus

Ordering works in an unusual way. Payment is in advance only: orders that are paid by Friday bank close go out the following Monday, and a slow transfer can take up to three days to arrive. If a variety has sold out they send a comparable one instead, unless the order says otherwise. Shipping is an insured three euro seventy five cent parcel with a tracking number, and a long list of European countries is free of charge. Dispatch follows the plants: water lilies wait until sprouting is safe, lotus until the temperatures have settled.

Lotus also comes with a naming ceremony. You buy a plant, give it a name, and receive a certificate showing the name and a photograph; the name is at the same time entered in the lotus register in China and from then on belongs to that plant. There are three versions. Deluxe costs 199 euros with champagne or 179 with apple juice, and afterwards you get walked through the lotus beds; the light version at 159 or 139 euros leaves the plant in the nursery so you can drop in now and then; the set at 189 or 159 euros ships an unnamed lotus that is not yet in flower, together with a small bottle of champagne and the certificate, so you need not travel at all. The ceremony can only be carried out in June, July and August, while the plants are flowering.

Gold Medals and Demanding Customers

At the Bundesgartenschau in Erfurt in 2021 the nursery took four gold medals, in four categories: perennials, tropical water lilies, hardy water lilies and lotus. Their plants have dressed the Federal Chancellery, the Hotel Adlon and the Berlinale venue, and they appear in John Wick 4, filmed at the Babelsberg studios. In 2021 they also became a supplier to the Königliche Gartenakademie in Berlin, starting with a trial delivery.

Plenty of media have written about them: the MAZ newspaper in 2016, Gartenradio in 2017, the Frankfurter Allgemeine in 2021, and in 2024 both rbb’s Gartenzeit and Antenne Brandenburg. The nursery is also a member of the International Waterlily and Water Gardening Society. The Gartenradio programme put it neatly: Elli had the land, Christian had the idea, and Nick packed the plants for the road.