I've got four blooms open, a leaf that thinks it is a bloom and several more tiny blooms thinking about opening....all on a handful of bulbs...
Callas are going bloom happy....
Do you dig these in the fall?
Love that leaf that thinks it's a bloom - nice veining!
LOL over the leaf! A friend gave me a white one and it's blooming now. I bought Cameo and was a little disappointed in the color, but I still like it. I love the speckled leaves. I definately have to dig and store mine. Do you?
This is the first time I have had callas...and I jsut moved here in October, but I doubt if I will have to dig them. I am just about 90 miles north of the zone I used to live in 7 years ago and I never had to dig my glads, Asian Lilies, daylilies, or rice paper plants. In fact, when I moved here, I had a stand of bamnana trees that were healthy as could be. The older plants do not go dromant (I suspect due to a microenvirnoment) and for the alst three years the older trees ahve bloomed and made fruit...even though the house sat empty for a year prior to us moving here in October....The small cannas that were planted by the nanners were not dug up and came popping up as soon as it got warm enough...so if the cannas and nanners survive, I'm sure the callas will too.
The spots on these callas are not white...they are clear. There is a clear layer of tissue over the spots, and if you put your finger behind one of the spots, you see straigth through as if it were a window. Then to have the wierd leaf that thinks it is a flower...what fun plants! Next year I want some of the red ones and some of the purple ones. I've always liked the silk calla lilies...they look stunning in a tall vase with nothig but about a dozen stems of the silk flowers and some colored glass inthe bottom. I can't have real flowers in the house or the cats will eat them....but I can enjoy my yard and have silks to imitate them inside. Better for our allergies anyway....
I'm planning to put in two large daylily beds in the next year, so I may move my DLs to the large beds and dedicate this bed to all the other lilies and bulbs. My sis just rbought me some blackberry lilies and a bunch of crinums and Peruvian Daffodils...I laready had three crinums and a Peruvian Daffodil...
There is one house I pass on the way to my cousin's that has a huge bed of crinums that just seem to be taking over. Then there is another house that has what loks like Red Hot Pokers...but the bloom stalks are 5-7 feet tall instead of the normal 2 feet. They look just like Red Hot pokers...just HUGE. The foliage is the same, only larger...and the flowers are the same, only a lot larger. It is like some 'B' 50s sci-fi movie about trifids taking over the world...LOL!
Trifids, lordy, I haven't thought of that in years!!
That is because you are not married to my hubby...he thinks all my plants either look like trifids or corn. (He grew up in Illinois and is addicted to bad sci fi movies, hence his two obsessions!) However, we all have our fond memories of bad sci fi movies from our youth...when I see a canna root or a palmetto root, I think it is a Tingler. LOL!
My mom was visiting a few weeks ago and was looking at my daylily beds. She asked me if I was raising corn and why I had it planted that way. ;o)
ROFL! Yep, my hubby is an industrial psychologist. He often talks about how people see things through a distorted lens colored by their own life experiences. For instance, if you were bullied in school, then when you start working, you are liable to mistake good natured teasing as more bullying. Well, if you are raised among corn, you are liable to mistake daylilies and crinums for corn...but if you are raised among daylilies and crinums, you might mistake corn for really big daylilies or crinums... Hmm...nope, I don't see the reverse holding true. I was raised among DLs and crinums and I always recognized corn for what it was...but maybe that is because in addition to this being daylily country, they also grow corn here.
Ok, I have to admit, I had to go look up crinums! LOL They would not have been hardy in the zone I grew up in (southern Oregon zone 6.) I know my mom loved to grow corn when she planted a garden, but that was only for a few years. I think the main crops down there were potatoes and sugar beets.
My sis just brought me several crinums and Peruvian Daffodils. I alreayd had one or two of each....and the plants she brought ahve tons of babies int eh pot, too, so I am going to have lots of pretties!
Some of the crinums make a big flower similar to an amaaryllis...the ones I got from my family homestead taht my grandmother planted are lavender to purple (the depth of color varies from year to year....might have soemthing to do with the sopil sicne they were beside her hydrangeas and she often manipulated the ph of the soil to change teh colors of her hydrangeas)....others have lots of small, spidery flowers. I have a white crinum that makes the samll psidery flowers that I got from Tropicman as part of a trade. Can't wait for them all to bloom! There is one house between here and my cousin''s house that has a HUGE crinum bed....once they get established they myltiply like rabbits if they like the soil. Another house on the same drive has Red Hot Pokers that are twice as tall as they are supposed to be. If I can ever get over there by myself, I think I'll knock on the door and ask if I can have some cuttings. I have some Red Hot Pokers taht I bought at the nursery, but they haven't bloomed and they are about the size of small daylilies. I don't know if that house has an unusual cultivar or if the plants are just doing that much better than 'normal' plants.
Here is a photo of my crinum and Peruvian Daffodil haul. I hiope to get them i the ground this evening, btu I am pretty tired from digging out another bed ealrier today and then beign attacked by a whole mess of the biggest fire ants I have ever seen. I had to take some Benadryl to control the reaction and now I'm feeling like I could lie down and sleep for a week.
Oh my! Fire ants?? Yikes! Yes, do go lay down. I know that if I take Benadryl it knocks me out cold!
You sure made quite a haul there! I planted some Peruvian Daffodils a few weeks ago and they are coming up now. I'm excited to see them bloom!
Well billyporter is the only midwesterner on this thread but maybe the rest of you can tell me about what conditions the calla lilies like. I've had the giant white callas for 2 years and they haven't bloomed yet. They are multiplying bulbs but no flowers. I got them in a trade form someone in CA. I had a small calla that someone gave me over winter - its a pale lavender with a plain green leaf. I planted it out to get only morning sun and the plant looks good, its still too early for flowers. Dot hey want conditions similar to a caladium? I love Callas but they are frustrating me.
alyrics
Wow, that's really strange that the big white ones aren't blooming for you. Mine seem to grow like weeds. I divided a great big clump last year and they are coming back by leaps and bounds! Mine are planted on the east side of my house so they only get morning and early afternoon sun. They seem to like a lot of water too, but not the heavy rains that we sometimes get. My small callas don't do as well as the larger ones, so I'm not sure what to tell you about those.
I find the big white ones like morning sun, and they also like it moist.
Had to go find the picture - this is from 5 days ago.
Oh those are stunning! I need to get some of those!
I have my callas planted in full sun. I didn't even look at thepackage to see what they liked...I just ahd it in my hed they liked the same thing as my cannas, so I planted them beside the cannas. They get lots of afternoon sun...that may be why the spots on them that are normally white are clear instead.
I wter them every day. We have had a bad drought this year with half of our usual rainfall...and no measurable rainfall since May 11 when we got .03 inches! So I'm out there every afternoon with the hose trying to drench everything enugh to make it through one more day.
My Calla Lilies are in full sun all day and do very well. It gets very hot here in the summer high 90's and 100+. And I don't dig them up for winter, even though it says I'm supposed to in my zone. Didn't know any better at the time. ;o) Luckily, they come back bigger and better every year! And we can get very cold here in the winter, so I don't know why, but they are fine.
Sherry
You probably have a micro-environment like I have with my nanners. They are protected fromt eh north wind and are next to the house and concrete car port so they get radiatonal heating...even in the winter.
Mine are in full shade in ordinary garden dirt. I put them in the same place every year. I water only if it looks dry, and rarely fertilize. I don't plant too deep, maybe an inch under the surface.
Alyrics, I too am suprised your white ones haven't bloomed. I store mine in the bottom of a closet over the winter and they are already sprouting before it's warm enough to plant. Maybe you could pot up a couple early in the spring, and keep them in the house awhile. Maybe they will do better.
2zeus, those are really nice!
BamaBelle, I've never heard of clear spots. That's kind of neat.
This is my first time with callas, so I have no idea why they have the clear spots. My sis gave me the bulbs and hers had white spots...so I"m thinking it probably ahs to do with them getting so much sun or it might have to do with the soil. I got a photo of one of them looking into the htroat today. The first ones I had bloom had a little bit of dark speckles in the throat...but now the dark speckling is giving way to dark purple.
I have peach colored with a deep maroon throat. Cameo. Of course the peach looked more luminous in the catalog, but maybe mine need sun to give that effect. Laugh!
My X - Sister in Law started growing them, and caladiums. I didn't get any until after they were divorced. I like them. I wish I had room to over winter caladiums. There are some neat colors with them too.
Oooh! That cameo sounds gorgeous! I am thinking that next year I am gont to seperate out my beds and dedicate this bed to cannas and callas. I"ll move the Asians and daylilies to new beds. Hate to dig them all up after I just palnted them this year...but at the rat they are gong, the cannas are going to block the sun from them completely next year. I amy end up moving the cannas and callas and leaving the other stuff...there are fewer of the cannas and callas than there are the DLs, Asians, galds, crinums and Peruvian Daffodils.....But this bed probably gets more sun....decisions, decisions....
Been there. I've moved things around a lot. It's worth it if things aren't going as planned. The area gets dug and freshly weeded. Looks great for a summer, laugh!
Hello There
Ive been reading your posts and learning lots along the way, thank you.
Does anybody grow the deeper and darker callas?
Does the bloom color at all dictate how well a plant will take the sun?
Thanks again
Neil
I don't know about callas, but with some other flowers I have been finding that to be the case. My Four O'Clocks appear to change color and bloom time according to sun exposure...at least that is my theory.The flowers tath get the most sun are all white, the ones that get teh least amount of sun are yellow and pink. My sis, who gave me the bulbs, said she has had a yellow and a solid pink on the same plant...which indicates to me that something causes the bloom color to change. I planted the bulbs without knowing anything about color...and all my sister's Four O'Clocks that she got the bulbs from are yellow with pink...so I planted the bulbs around my mailbox..and the ones that get more sun are white, the shadier ones are yellow. It is either one heck of a coincidence that all the white ones were plabnted on one side and all the yellow on the other side....and that my sister never had any white blooms off of them....or the location has somethign to do with it. The whites bloom a lot more profusely and bloom after dark and stay open all night long. The yellows bloom in the late aftrnoon and close earlier. It has to be the sun that is causing these color differences in the blooms, as well as the timing. But, I'm going to need to run some experiments to see for sure...maybe plant some seeds from the whites in the shade and see if they bloom yellow and pink...then plant some yellow in the sun and see if they bloom white. Of course, it will take a year or so to get an answer unless I can find where someone has laready done research on this.
Anyway, I don't know if this will help you any with your calla question, but I guess the short answer is taht sun can influence a lot of things...like sunburning a variegated plant. I'm a newbie with a lot of the plants I have this year, so I"m still learnign a lot. Fortuantely, we have tapped into quite a reservoir of experts here on DG, so if one person can't answer our questins, someone can!
I'm thinking next year I want to plant more cannas and callas. I want some of the big white callas...and I'm really falling for cannas in a big way. And then there are the bananas, gingers and daylilies...not to mention crinums and Peruvian daffodils.....OK, so I'm addicted....
Hello, my name is Bama Belle and I'm a garden-a-holic....
One bed at a time..... LOL
LOL! My sentiments exactly...
Why don't you just plant in pots next year and then move the pots. I have 5 Mirabelis all in pots that just started growing. When they bloom, I'd be happy to move one or two around for the sake of science (LOL). How much shade can they take? I thought they liked full sun.
Pots have to be watered more than beds...and right now it takes me 2 hours just to water the beds....EVERY DAY right now due to tthe drought! The only things I'm leaving in pots are the hanging baskets for the porch and the 'extreme' tropicals (like orchid cacti) that will have to come in during the week or two of winter we get down here.
OK, so I exaggerate, we get four weeks of winter....
My goodness, four weeks, how do you stand it? (evil grin)
ROFL! After spending the last three years in Illinois, and the four years prior to that in Kansas City, I am LOVING being back home among the heat, fresh produce, family....and, yes, even the fire ants, gnats mosquitos and snakes...LOL! The closest I have come to 'gardening' in the last seven years was a half a barrel on a porch with a rose in it...and all the beautiful pics Lisa kept sending me of her flowers and gardens to keep me going and give me fodder for my artwork. The only thing better than only having 2-4 weeks of 'winter' (which rarely means temps dropping below freezing)....is watching the eather channel and laughing our butts off at the people who have to drive through invasions of Albino Brain Chiggers and streets paved with black ice to get to work in the winter... (muah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!)
Ah, you're a cruel woman, to take pleasure in the sufferings of others!
I do the exact same thing - watch footage of people back east or on the prairies, and then I look outside and see all that beautiful green - and sigh smugly.
We get points for moving, don't we?
Yep, some folks are blessed to be born in the right place...others get smart and move there. LOL! My hubby was afraid he would cath all get out, being a yuankee and moving to the south...but folks have told him that the minute he moved south, his IQ went up several points, in their estimation. We can't all be born down here...but those who aren't lucky enugh to be born in a warm climate, at least show good sense when they move down here...as long as they don't try to turn the South into a southern version of Yankee land. The one thng that southerners HATE is hearing someone from up north tell them how much bnetter they did things up north. In fact, that is the definition of a d--n yankee, versus just a plain old, regular yankee.
What a hoot - I always wondered what the definition of that was!
Yep, some folks are blessed to be born in the right place. I'm VERY glad I was born in Oregon.....wouldn't have it any other way :oD
I myself like Iowa! I don't like the winter, but it does make spring all the sweeter.
I didn't mind the snow when we lived in KC. We could sit in our townhouse by the fireplace and watch the snow from the comfort of our fireside chairs...it seemed so peaceful...as long as we didn't have to drive aywhere. We had the complex folks keeping the roads cleared and sildewalks salted and shoveled...and it was just so quiet. We were within walking distance of the grocery store, so if we ran out of coffee or cigarettes (or, God forbid, cat food!) David could hoof over and pick up whatever 'neccessities' we urgently needed.
But then we moved to Central Illinois. Nothing was close by. We had to drive to go to the grocery store, drug store, doctor, etc. My MIL was not safe to drive in the snow, so if we so much as had an inch of snow, David had to shovel the walk and salt it so she wouldn't slip on ther way to the car, then he had to drive her to work and pick her up again at the end of the day. And because her work didn't shovel, salt or otherwise clear the parking lot before the employees arrived, he would have to get out and hold her arm and walk her to the door so she didn't fall and break a hip. Plus, until he developed cancer, we used to smoke...and my MIL insisted that we do that outside so we had to sit out in -5 degree temps to smoke. I have to admit that a few times, I sat in the bathroom with the window open and a fan blowing the smoke out the window because my arthritis just could not deal with the cold. I tried to quit several times rather than subject myself to that...but it took David getting cancer for us BOTH to quit...and when you are married, you pretty much both have to quit in order for it to work.
I really don't miss the heating bills. Our last heating bills in KC ran $500 a month...on top of the electric bill which was an additional $125 and then there was the $1200 a month rent! This past winter, my MIL said her heating bill went up by 50%. I can only imagine what that townhouse in KC must now cost in rent (at an annual increase of $100 a month it would be up to $1600 a month this year) and the heating bill would be up to $750 a month. I flinched when I got my electic bill this past month with the 'August in June' weather we have had....but it was still a fraction of the heating bills up yonder...perhaps because keeping warm in subzero weather is a life threatening neccesity...whereas keeping cool in the summer is only life threatening for the elderly and frail. If necessary, I'll crank the AC up to 75 and sit around in skimpy clothes and sit under some fans.... Keeping the AC set on 72 is not a life threatening neccessity for me or most people...so the bills for keeping cool, while higher than we would like, are still going to stay reasonable compared to home heating costs because folks can get mad and crank up the thermosat and 'just say no' to the power companies....
Small town here, we drive everywhere for groceries, CAT FOOD, doctor and dentist. We finally have the house sealed up tight against the winter winds, and close the shades till the sun is out of the windows in the summer. We close the house up in the cool of the morning and can go without the AC for a long time, as long as the nights are cool. Catches up to you after a while. I quit smoking 10 years ago and DH, 5. I wanted to quit before I had health problems. So far, just high blood pressure and I was in denial over that. Not me. But I take my medicine and try to walk every day. Try. Doesn't always happen.
It's true Bama, there are a few things us d___ yankees can do better. Here are just a few. LOL!
1. Drive in snow and ice.
2. Shovel walks.
3. Scrape windshields.
4. Sledding and Sleigh Riding.
5. Build Snowmen.
6. Eat Natural Snow Cones.
ROFL! Yep...heard that! Now I'm living in a rural town and have to drive to the grocery store, doctor, dentist, etc. But at least I don't have to do it in the snow or ice. LOL!
I reckon we all have our weather likes and dislikes. I hate the cold...it literally HURTS my bones, my fingers, my toes, my ears, etc.... I can handle 99 degree weather with 100% humidity, but Lord, oh Lord, please don't subject me to anythign below 32 degrees! OTOH, my MIL can't stand to behot...much less hot and humid. ANd her son in law can't get enough snow. He'd just as soon live in Canada if he could so he coudl sepnd even mroe mornths up to his ears in snow.
I thrive on tropical storms and hurricanes (as long as they don't make lndfall and nobody gets hurt!) but my hubby would rather live in tornado alley and face an F5 tornado for an hour than to have a wimpy tropical storm the size of Texas bearing down on us.