Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Calla Lilies

It seems a lot of people are finding my site by searching for "calla lilies". If you are not sure what a calla looks like, they are the yellow flowers in the picture below.

Today I planted mine and thought I would post a few "how-to" pictures for those wondering how to store them over the winter. I usually store mine right in the soil. I just cut them off and stick the whole container in the crawl space under the part of my house that does not have a basement. However, last year I decided it was time to remove them from the soil and start with all new soil this year (probably a good idea to do about every three years). I sprayed off all the dirt with water and then let them dry out for a day in the sun. Once they were dry, I just dumped them all in a brown grocery bag, labeled it and stuck them in the crawl space.

Today I went in and brought them out. I am happy to see that they all made it through with flying colors. See the little white shoots? They are all eager to begin their growing season. Sometimes they won't have shoots, but as long as they are not mushy, they should be fine.

I filled my old worn window box with new container soil. Then I just set them all on top before covering with soil. This is so that I can see the spacing. As you will notice, I space them quite close together. Mine are not planted very deeply. Three or four inches should be fine if they will not have to spend the winter in the ground. For warmer climates, you may want to plant a bit more deeply.

In Northern Michigan it is still a bit too cold to leave them outside uncovered. For the next week, maybe two, I will cover them each night.

Callas are actually very EASY to grow. So many people seem intimidated by them, but really, there is nothing to it.

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