Calla is a plant native to South Africa, a member of the araceae family. Even beginners can easily cope with its breeding. Multi-colored and bright calla flowers are undoubtedly oh, they will decorate any garden. Their tubers are planted in early May, and after 30 days the first buds can be seen. The question of how to store calla lilies at home in winter requires special lighting so that the beds will delight you with beautiful flowers in summer.
How to store tuberous calla lilies?
First, the tubers are cleared of soil, after which they are dipped into a fungicide solution for 20-30 minutes. After this time, they are dried in the sun for 2-3 days.
Then the wilted leaves are cut off and the tubers are stored in a container with sawdust, peat or vermiculite. The container is placed in a dry room with an air temperature of 10-12°C. In winter, make sure that the tubers do not rot or dry out.
The calla tuber must have a diameter of at least 7 cm. Otherwise, flowers are unlikely to appear from it in the first year
Bulb storage
There is nothing difficult about preserving dug calla lilies at home. You just need to carry out a number of necessary preparatory measures and maintain a certain temperature and humidity conditions when wintering the bulbs.
Plants dug up and dried for 10 days are cleared of soil residues. All roots and dry leaves are completely cut off.
Important point! During the pruning process, all roots must be removed. Having left at least one root on the bulb, you should be prepared for the flower to soon begin to grow.
While pruning the roots, carefully inspect the planting material for damaged or disease-affected areas.
To further minimize the risk of damage by putrefactive bacteria, the tubers are kept in a weak solution of potassium permanganate, and then washed in running clean water. If black spots are detected, the top layer is removed from the affected areas, dried for 15-20 minutes, and then treated with crushed activated carbon or brilliant green.
The prepared bulbs are left to dry in a place protected from direct sunlight at a temperature within +25°C.
Tubers are best stored in paper bags. Some gardeners solve the problem by wrapping each bulb in sheets of newspaper or offset paper. It is also convenient to store planting material in cardboard lockable boxes, or fabric bags filled with wood shavings or substrate.
Ideal for storing material, a dry cellar or the top shelf of a refrigerator is suitable, where the temperature is stably maintained in the range from +3°C to +7°C. The main thing is to avoid close proximity to fruits and vegetables, which create high humidity.
In order for the plant to enjoy abundant flowering in the new season, the dormant period must last at least 2 months.
What to do if the tubers sprouted ahead of time?
If sprouts appear in winter, it is best to plant the tubers in a small container with fresh, light soil and place them on a window located on the south side. After about 2 weeks, the first leaves will grow. If the daylight hours are still short, the plants need additional lighting. When the weather becomes warm outside, the callas are transplanted into open ground or into larger containers.
Please note: for calla lilies to bloom well, the tubers must be dormant for at least two months a year.
When to dig up callas
The main feature of tubers is that they are not able to withstand temperatures below +2°C. Since in almost any region of Russia the temperature in winter is much lower, calla lilies have to be stored indoors rather than in open ground in winter.
The yellowed leaves of the plant will help determine when to remove callas for the winter. The change in color indicates the completion of the biological cycle. Traditionally, in temperate latitudes this period occurs at the end of September, when night temperatures drop significantly.
10-15 days before digging up callas for subsequent storage, stop watering the flowerbed, allowing the soil to dry thoroughly.
The plant is dug up entirely, completely preserving the leaves and root system. In this state, it is left to dry for 10-12 days, allowing the roots and foliage to dry out on their own. During this period, the roots have time to absorb all the nutrients that will give them the strength to awaken in the next season. To minimize damage to tubers when digging, the diameter of the hole should be at least 30 cm, and the procedure itself should be performed with a garden fork. It can be judged that the drying process is completely completed if the leaves are easily separated from the tuber.
If the digging procedure is delayed, and the plant is “grabbed” by the first cold weather, it must first be trimmed, leaving only a small petiole.
For storing calla lilies at home in winter, only healthy tubers that are dense to the touch and free from any kind of mechanical damage are suitable.
Advice: it is better not to separate the babies from the mother’s bulb at this stage. During storage, they ripen, are isolated from the mother tuber by a dense film and, as a result, separate on their own.
The larger the tuber, the more flowers it can reproduce. Large tubers can form up to 20 flowers.
Important point! The only way to separate the babies from the mother tuber is by breaking them off. There should be no cuts. All fractures should be treated with activated carbon.
How to grow calla lilies as a container crop?
To plant calla lilies, use a pot with a diameter of 30-40 cm. Drainage made of expanded clay or sand is placed at the bottom of the container, and a permeable nutrient soil mixture is poured on top. Tubers are planted to a depth of 3-5 cm (this depends on their size) and watered abundantly. The pot is placed in a well-lit room with an air temperature of 13-18°C.
After the first leaves sprout, the calla lilies are transferred to a warmer place (with a daytime temperature of 22-25°C and a night temperature of at least 8°C). There should also be a lot of light here.
Moist soil and good lighting are necessary conditions for the appearance of calla lilies.
Every 14 days, it is recommended to feed calla lilies with complex fertilizer for flowering plants. Then, after 1.5 months from the date of planting, it will delight you with the first blooming flowers.
Varieties and types
Street calla lilies may differ from their relatives in the type of root system and bud color. In the first case, the plant is divided into rhizomatous and tuberous. Based on the color of the flower, the division occurs into two groups:
Read also: How to dig a well deep
The first type of plant originated from an Ethiopian species of impressive size (up to 150 cm) with huge leaves with large, white flowers.
The colored type originated from the pink-red variety Remani and the yellow Eliotta, and is distinguished by its compact size (up to 50 cm) and bright colors of the bedspreads.
Each variety and type of plant is good in its own way and requires the attention of the gardener, especially with regard to watering and soil selection when growing in the garden. There are many rules for caring for a flower and how many times a week to water it.
How to grow calla lilies from seeds?
Seeds are sown superficially in a container with loose soil (for example, a mixture of peat and sand in a ratio of 1:4). An interval of about 8 cm is maintained between them. The container is placed in a well-lit place with an air temperature of at least 18°C. When the seedlings become crowded, they are planted in separate pots. Callas grown from seeds bloom 2-3 years after sowing.
Do not forget that calla lilies are poisonous, especially their tubers. Therefore, when planting, wear protective gloves and isolate the flower from small children and pets.
Flowers in pots
How to store calla bulbs, if they are indoor plants, worries many housewives. After all, these flowers also require a period of rest.
When flowering is finished, containers with callas are placed in a dark place with a low temperature so that their growing season ends faster. In this case, watering the plants should be reduced to a minimum.
You can store tubers of indoor calla lilies in winter directly in pots. Or you can dig up the bulbs, carry out the treatment as indicated above, and keep them in the general conditions for this plant.
Digging up callas for the winter
Before digging up calla lilies, you need to prepare the plant. To do this, stop watering it if the weather is dry, about 2-3 weeks before the expected harvest for the winter. This advice is relevant for the southern regions, where a dry climate in the fall is far from uncommon. Before digging, you need to cut the calla lilies leaves above the soil level by about 7-8 cm. After the first frost, the foliage has already dried out, and this operation is easy to carry out with ordinary scissors. When digging calla lilies, it is advisable to leave a fairly large distance around their roots. It is better to play it safe and dig a hole of a larger diameter than to treat a plant injured by a shovel or pitchfork. After digging, you need to carefully remove the soil from its roots, being careful not to damage them.
Preparing for planting in spring
Before planting plants in the ground after wintering, they are thoroughly inspected. Tubers should be dense, elastic and healthy in appearance. All diseased and damaged specimens are discarded. If the damage is minor, you can try to save the flower. All rot is cut off with a sterile instrument, the lesion is treated with a fungicide, dried and sprinkled with charcoal. Plant it in a small pot and monitor its condition.
Adviсe
- Calla lily varieties can bloom as seasonal outdoor plants, moved indoors for winter, or as indoor plants.
- If you want your flowers to bloom especially early on, try container planting in December. Keep the plant indoors at cool room temperature in a bright location, such as a windowsill. This should ensure flowering for later spring.
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Callas are beautifully flowering perennial plants; they can be grown as a potted crop or planted in the garden. With the arrival of the first frosts, the question arises: how to store callas in winter? For a productive winter they need a temperature not lower than -2ºС. Not all climate zones have such mild winter weather, so these perennials need to be dug up for the winter to create optimal conditions for them.
Let's wake up the callas with the arrival of spring
In order to complete wintering, the best time for the middle zone will be the beginning of April, for the southern regions - the beginning of March. Calla lilies root tubers are taken out, carefully examined, and treated with a solution of manganese or any fungicide against fungal diseases. If you didn’t separate the “babies” from the calla lilies in winter, you can separate them now.
“Children” are not cut off from the mother plant, but broken off. The separation area must be disinfected, treated with brilliant green, and sprinkled with ash.
In order for these beautiful plants to safely endure the period of winter dormancy, you need to properly dig them up, dry them and ensure they are stored in a dry and cool place.
Magnificent tropical plants have long been firmly established in flower beds and flower beds, continuing to increase their popularity. If just a few years ago they were considered exotic and were found only in pots or cut in bouquets, today planting calla lilies in the garden has become a common procedure for many owners of summer cottages. These delicate flowers, elegantly raising their arrows with buds high, effectively decorate the landscape, adding a touch of tenderness and mystery to it, and delight the eye for a long time. Despite the fact that calla lilies came to us from South Africa, located in tropical latitudes, it is a fairly hardy and unpretentious plant. The flowering period of calla lilies ranges from three to eight weeks. Summer residents love zantedeschia for its long flowering period - from the beginning of summer until almost mid-autumn. Some gardeners specially grow such a plant in pots, and just before the onset of cold weather they bring it into the house. This helps prolong the blooming of the calla lilies. Every gardener who has given preference to this flower must know when to dig up callas in the fall and how to store callas. It is during the process of storing calla lilies that flower buds are laid for subsequent flowering.
How to dry tubers
The next important step before storing is to dry the tubers. How to store callas after digging? They are placed in a well-ventilated place, protected from the bright light of the sun. The ideal temperature for the drying area is constantly maintained from plus 20 to plus 25 degrees.
The drying process for the future inhabitants of the flowerbed should last two to three weeks.
