Who has some Calla lilies to show us?

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

The second head of Pink Mist, not yet mushy but the season is holding out so it will probably get there. If not, I would just leave the seed in the pod on the pot.

Albomaculata, which is quite hardy, I don't think the seed has ever properly matured before the cold weather set in. I just put the pot in the greenhouse when frost is threatened and let them rot back, that is mostly by the end of October but this year it's staying a little warmer.

I only had 2 spathes on Crystal Blush, they have made large looking seed pods which look like pearls almost.

Thanks for the info, wallaby. I dug my callas from the garden so will make up a pot and set the seed head on top and into the greenhouse. Your callas and everyone elses on this thread are just drop dead gorgeous!

Glad to have helped, as you have with lilies! This has been a lot of fun, and it possibly has encouraged others to try them, they are easy to grow if you know how. They are much more drop dead gorgeous than the sellers pics show them to be. pard, your lilies are also drop dead gorgeous!

I have some calla greens. I should be able to show off beautiful flowers in Jan. This is Green Goddess beginning to peek out.
Also peeking are White Giant and Picasso. Hercules never went dormant but has yet to bloom. Flame and a noid pink have not appeared yet.

The Black Magics never went dormant either.

This message was edited Nov 5, 2006 2:22 PM

I just received my green goddess yesterday. I know it's late but do you think it will grow at all this fall. Can you give me any help in what I should do with these. Do you know what the ph should be ? I'm new at gardening and beginning to think maybe these are a little too hard for me.

betterbloom~

Zantedeschia aethiopica and hybrids thereof, are naturally "in season" opposite the seasons in the northern hemisphere, and as we here in the US enter fall, they would be entering spring south of the equator, in their natural environment.

So *now* is the time to grow them!

My 'Green Goddess' has two blooms going now and that is just as it should be. Aethiopica callas will grow year-round when conditions are right (usually meaning: when they are warm and have adequate moisture). They are a tropical plant and, in being exactly *opposite* our northern hemisphere seasons, will hate being outdoors in zones that get winter freezes (like here in 7b).

There are other threads with discussion about Z. aethiopica and its hybrids here at DG, so you could search for some of the discussion, but---

Do plant up your aethiopica bulbs and grow them warm with good light NOW. As far as 'Green Goddess' is concerned, it is SPRING!

If you need more tips, D-mail me or ask here.

Robert.

Ok, I think I understood that. I was really confused because when I went to order some other callas on-line everyone said out of season. With your help I was able to get Green Goddess. Hopefully they should grow good here with our winters being very mild. I had two pink calllas that I thought I had killed last year that are now popping up after being buried two foot under ground. After reading up on these things I realized that I had bought them at the end of their season and were just going domant. I can truly say Iam a better gardener after finding DG and all the wonderful & experienced people here.
Raydio, thank you so very much for all of your help.

Good luck! With your very warm climate you should have huge Green Goddesses year-round, lucky you!

If your pink callas were the "other kind" of calla, like rehmanii, they go dormant naturally and should. If it was one of the pinky aethiopica hybrids like 'Pink Mist' or 'Marshmallow', they can go dormant in summer if they go dry, but if given constant moisture, they'll just slow down a bit but will stay green. You should be able to see 'White Giant' attain its 7-foot staure easily there. yep, lucky you!

Robert.

7 foot ? Here I go again...gotta have ! Thanks!

Betterbloom, I got my Hercules an the White Giant at Kartuz, that's your neck of the woods, right?

Never heard of it, is White Giant the name of the calla? I'm a newbie, so I have to ask stupid questions most of the time.

'White Giant':
http://www.plantdelights.com/Catalog/Current/Detail/03695.html

You can also search DG for Zantedeschia 'White Giant', it's been in several threads.

From the DG Plantfiles:
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/142855/index.html

Google is your friend, too.


This message was edited Nov 6, 2006 4:22 PM

ok, thanks. I'll grab my debit card and start looking, haha!

betterbloom~

You're worth it!

In the right site, White Giant could be a stunning showpiece in just a few years.......

Robert.

Yep, that's what I keep saying. But, I think I'd better go back to work soon if this keeps up.

I was doing some research on calla bulbs and found a place in Oregon called FlowersBulbs. I couldn't find it in the garden watchdog so I am just wondering if anyone else has ordered from them ? They don't start shipping under Feb. so I have time to check them out beforehand.

Vossner: So sorry I didn't get back to you. I had never heard of Kartuz so I looked it up. It's about 150 miles from here I think, near San Diego.
Blythe is near NOTHING! I am talking, no wal-mart, no HD, no Lowes's.....nothing! We do have one post office , one grocery store, K-mart, Ace Hardware and that is it...and believe me they get an arm and a leg for everything. I order most everything on-line as far as plants. I got my Green
Goddess from Hurt's..although both of them are coming up, they don't look the same. After that I ordered some colored including flame, and white giant from Pacific Callas. Very pleased with Pacific, in fact they sent me extra of some bulbs.

Dec 28.

Nice bloom, Jamesco. Are you growing those indoors?

Yes, I have one tuber that I have... "confused" into growing in winter.
It is Zantedeschia albomaculata, still my old favourite.
It takes well to being treated as a Hippeastrum in a south window. Much more space-efficient than the big white ones.

The rest seem to be quietly dormant in cool storage on last inspection.

I just started growing callas a couple of months ago. All of mine are outside, however if we get frost then I hang a light above them. I'm hoping it stays warm enought for them now cuz I just got more planted and can't protect them all. I just picked up four pots of callas today from the hardware store, for $2.00 each. They were root-bound and over watered so I brought them home, and re-potted them. They look pretty good now, considering. They had a lot of dried up blooms on them so I planted the seeds also. I just planted some giant whites, and I hear they can grow up to 7 feet in my climate, we'll see about that !

Sounds like fun, well done on those acquisitions. It sounds like the are done blooming and are in thier vegetative stage, so now they will bulk up for next season's blooms.
Think of them as amaryllis, tulips, etcetera. They do need to go dormant if more leaves start to yellow.

The leaves can be killed by frost, but I've seen some leaves persist until almost 25F. I overwinter some outdoors here, the tubers, if happy, are amazingly hardy. Some folks in six and even 5b have reported overwintering.

James; I am glad to brought this up.
I have to callas; Zantedeschia aethiopica and one named white dream (a hybrib?)
Well olmost two most ago we had one day down to freezing point, and the following day down to –8C/17F.
As you wrotte some of the leaves died (the Z. aethiopica) but the “white dream” looks just the same, so it must be more hardy.
I was very busy those to days, and eventually just forgot they were out there.
The temp have been warmer sence, ranging from 41 to 52F (very unusual).
So now I have decided to see how long they can stay out side.
Never thought theZ. aethiopica would be this hardy.

Good one Kenton, how did you 'confuse it' to flower now?

betterbloom, there is a giant aethiopica which grows to 7' in CA, someone on ebay has been selling seeds from one and it seems they get their stock from an Arboretum sales , it also has spotted leaves but I wouldn't be certain of spots unless vegetatively propogated . Kartuz is offering one without spots, they say to 5' but with good care and climate they do reach 7'.

http://www.kartuz.com/search=Zantedeschia

Monica, good luck with your White Dream, I hope it grows well again next year.

My Zant. Mr Martin is still green in the greenhouse, most others have gone dormant now but with having late mild weather it looks like Pink Mist is emerging now.

Yes I have the giant aethiopica, The reason I don't think it's going to get that tall is because it will probably get too hot in summer and will have to be cut back and then start all over again. Summer temps here are about 125-130. For the most part, all plants get confuses here because we can have a frost here one night and then have temps of 80-90's the next day. Right now my irises are starting to bloom.

That's a bit hot, it must be very difficult to live in that sort of heat without trying to keep plants alive. Gee, 50C is 122F, anything over 40C starts to cook you if you are in the heat for more than a few minutes! A soft leaved plant would frizzle, I no longer have zone envy!

You're right about the envy, all you can do is stay inside in the summer, or sit in the river. At night it will drop down to 100. The bad thing is I have no shade in my yard so I will have to built something before summer gets here. I don't have much of an assortment of plants for that reason. I had to learn that when they say don't overwater plants, that is doesn't apply here, there is no such thing as over watering in that heat.

My Green Goddesses are beginning to peek out. last year they bloomed in Jan. I was heartbroken that my White Giant from Kartuz simply disappeared in summer 2006, but I am delighted to report the plant is now about 6" tall, with two leaves. My Hercules seemed to fare well thru the summer but no bloom action. Near it, I planted some white TX Star hibiscus (thanks Barb), some white canna, and some white shrimp plant. Can't wait for my white show.

My Picassos also had a rough 1st summer and they bloomed, but all seems to indicate these are tough callas. I'm so glad!

Betterbloom, Blythe is hot! Seems so wrong to complain about Houston in the high 90s, lol

Yes, I was trying to goggle a site for weather archives, to find out the hottest it's gotta here. I haven't found one yet. I heard it got up to 145, but not sure how true that is. Vossner, you say 90's...that's our late winter and spring temp.
I planted Green Goddess about a month ago, it's about 5 inches tall. My pink callas that I thought I had killed are about 6 inches but no blooms yet. I'm going to go back to the hardware store and Tuesday and hopefully get more callas for $2.00. The ones I replanted yesterday seem to look pretty good today.
Maybe I'l check into Picasso, since you say it's pretty tough.

B Bloom if you go to www.noaa.gov and search around the recored high for Blythe is 121, in 1910. That is according to what records I could find. It is a very large and disorganized site. Just like the rest of the .gov websites I visit. Thank god for free Enterprise.

Aloe albiflora, my new favorite aloe, it reminds me of some of the SAfrican bulbs except it blooms more often and the bloom lasts longer than a bulb and aloes are members of the lily family and this gal is a fine example of why the botany people think that way and I adore long blooming plants and run on sentences, your mind has to race to keep up, such good exercise, especially for us cheeky folks, right Wallaby? Je dore le aloe.

Thanks Dale, I did find that site, disorganized is right. They are also wrong, about it only being 121. I'll do more searching tonight when I have more time. That picture doesn't even look like a aloe, very nice. And yes, that was a run-on / fused sentence.(LOL)

Why Dale I don't know what you mean.......(in a short sentence) love that Aloe.

Zest: Well done, please keep us fellow Calla lovers informed how they recover in the spring.

Wallaby: I started speeding up the tuber's cycle a month or two at a time. Simply getting a stored tuber warmer earlier will wake it up. In this time of shifting it's year-clock around, I discovered that the two-month dormancy required for flowers is true. Any less and it didn't bloom. But it has been on this schedule for two years now and has bloomed the past two winters.

Betterbloom: I wonder if you couldn't grow them in winter outdoors, letting them go dry-dormant (and hot) in the summer, like they do in their native South Africa.

Is anyone springing for the big selection of Captayn (or however it is spelled) Zantedeschia offered by Park's this year?

Kenton (cheeky, too)

Happy New Years!
James: I think that is what I will have to do, but will have to wait until summer to see how they react. I thinking of maybe putting in a misting system, but wondering if any one else thinks it might help ?

Kenton, your albomaculata reminded me of some a friend of mine grew. He stuck the tubers in the the pots with some of his house plants and they would grow and bloom at various times of year with dormancies in between. It was odd to me that they received pretty much the same care year round and prospered. Different times he thought they had rotted but they would show back up. At least a couple of years the same plant had blooms in winter indoors and summer outside.

The albomaculata and Pink Mist seedlings are all doing well and still in active growth. I'm still giving them half strength fish fertilizer about every 2 weeks. Should I expect them to go dormant sometime this winter?

What a gift to have blooms this time of year!

Neal, Pink Mist can stay in active growth all year and flower any time of year if kept warm enough, it will flower constantly. My seedlings are in the greenhouse, semi dormant, I just couldn't cope with more indoor plants!

calla-holics, 4paws (who's on dial up) is looking for good purples. Care to share your knowledge over here?

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/681146/

This message was edited Jan 1, 2007 12:26 PM