Bulbs: Who has some Calla lilies to show us?, 1 by wallaby1

wallaby1 wrote:
pard, I keep mine in a cold greenhouse, which is not altogether complete, i.e. it has panes missing on the ends but I did tape some bubble wrap over most of it last winter. They go through there perfectly OK, I don't water until it starts to warm up and then only a little until they grow, but hey don't dry out completely. So far it's only albomaculata and Pink Mist that I have done this with the seed, I couldn't be absolutely certain some others would be OK but I have a feeling they would. The seed inside most of them when mature is very hard like a little wooden ball, the winter cold may aid in their germination. Apart from that I have heard many years ago that many seeds germinate best if left in their complete head and buried that way. Also the coating on them may have some effect if left on, if you think of them in nature it's reproducing the state they would fall and over winter in, even in Sth Africa many places where some of these plants grow have very cold winters. It has worked for me.

I may experiment with the red one, keep a few inside, leave some in the greenhouse, but the plant itself has overwintered easily to -9C in it's pot. The few I had from it last year I kept inside, they weren't very mature (late, and cold summer) and I left them in their seed head until planting, only two germinated and one of those is weak, the other is coming along nicely. Some just don't make proper seed anyway, if you get any it's worth a try, you might get something really interesting.

If you have an aethiopica variety they do go mushy around the seed and it needs to be removed, Pink Mist is one and I washed the seed when it was dropping to pieces, (the later seed head I left on the pot). I put 20 in the propogator in early December, only 5 grew and 3 of those lived, but they are getting big now. The rest I put in in early June this year, they all grew. The ones left on the pot are still there, growing but needed moving but as I have more than enough it wasn't an emergency.

raydio, it just has to be 'Majestic Red', how many would keep colour like that!

I found Cameo's seed heads already dropped, very few seeds and they look like peas with little sprout points like peas have, with quite a lot of soft covering around them. Some are quite large, only 6 seeds from the first two heads, the last head was still stood but I took it off as the plant has died back, it had 9 smaller ones the same. There was other 'pods' that were just mush. I'm uncertain as to what these will do, Cameo didn't produce seeds on it's first flowering, and they don't look like any of the others so I put them straight into some compost in the propogator.

This is the first seed head of Pink Mist this year, it has fewer than last years, ready to drop to bits