Bulbs: Cala lily color question, 0 by cathy166

cathy166 wrote:
Calla lily (zantedeschia aethiopica) is not a true lilium. It is an aroid. I cannot give you the botanical breakdown without some research on my part, but the colored portion of the calla is not the flower. The actual flowers are on the spadix, and they are fairly insignificant blooms. The colored portion that you think of as the flower is actually the spathe.

There are some possibilities:
It is early yet, and they spathe may change color;
The callas may have been mislabeled;
The mystique of finding what you get first time out;
Depending on how many bulbs or corms you planted, you may still get the color you were expecting.

By the way, if you are using packaged potting soil, don't add other fertilizers; they start off with fertilizer. However, I always amend the potting mix with vermiculite or perlite. I do a lot of mixing, but never mix callas with lilies because callas do not winter in my zone (except for a few this year), and lilies do. I don't know if an abundance of nitrogen will give you green blooms as nitrogen is import for foliage.

The pot in the photo is the earliest to mature, and the other bulb with it is a hymenocallis, which is a hippeastrum or amaryllis relative. I don't know if you can tell, but that lovely, showy thing is a leaf. The two "blooms" (spathes) are harder to see, but you can tell from the outside that they're not too showy. A showy leaf is a big surprise, never expected.

You posted early June, and my callas weren't even close to blooming at that time. Are the rest of yours blooming, and are they more true? By the way, there is only one other "bloom" that is out. It is purple, and I did not plant any purple, except the deep purple that looks black

I hope you're not too disappointed with your calla. Seeing what you get is lots of fun ( unless you're a florist). My biggest surprise is that bulbs made it through last year's mild winter. The foliage is getting large. I can't wait to see what comes up. I know there is at least one black, which I can tell by the trim on the leaf. By the way, It id not matter when I potted up the bulbs. They are all coming up around the same time whether in the ground from last year or in pots from this year. Next year I think I'll start some indoors (Hah!)