Calla (Calla lily) – graceful flower

HomeAll flowers that start with CCalla (Calla lily) - graceful flower


The calla flower is very popular in wedding bouquets because of its majesty and beauty. Are one of the most beautiful flowers with a unique flower shape; have a wide range of colors: shades of green, pink , purple , yellow and orange (see photo). – all callas ). Other common names are also known, such as aronnica, tubular, porcine, and mini callas. Homeland – South Africa; It is grown, as a rule, from a bulb or a rhizome.

  • Kingdom : plants.
  • Type : angiosperms.
  • Class : dicot.
  • Detachment : often colored.
  • Family : Araceae.
  • Genus : santedexia (calf).

These are excellent houseplants, great for bedrooms, living rooms and various flower arrangements, symbolize grandeur and beauty, combined with different attributes and colors can convey a richness of meaning.

What do calla flowers look like?

Regardless of the selection of calla lilies, flowers have a characteristic appearance. Flowers on long petioles, basal leaves associated with a thick rhizome. The inflorescence is located on a leafless stem and consists of an ear and a bedspread. The spathe is a large, bright, funnel-shaped bract that surrounds an ear covered with tiny flowers. The leaves are usually 6-14 cm long, 5-11 cm wide, bright green. They are shaped like arrowheads and have white or silver blotches.

Calla flowers in the photo

Calla Care

If you’ve started growing these flowers in your garden, then it’s time to start taking care of them. It is a hardy plant with very little need, but there are some soil nutrition requirements that you should take into account. Just because these plants are considered weeds in their country of origin doesn’t mean that callas will automatically take over your soil! However, if you give it a little time and put in the extra effort, the result will be a lot of beautiful and healthy flowers.

The main care for callas is timely watering, fertilizing and loosening the soil.

Watering in the process of caring for calla flowers

Give proper attention to watering during the daily care of calla flowers. The plant originally grew in tropical swamps; this means that it will always require a lot of moisture, and will not tolerate dry spells or neglect by the gardener. Either water the plant regularly, especially on hot summer days, or plant it in places where it can get plenty of water without moist soil. If there is a small pond in your garden, it will be great to plant it close to the pond. But remember one detail – the plant needs a lot of water absorption, and artificial ponds do not have contact with the ground around it. If you just follow these requirements, then the flower will fill your garden, guaranteed.

Top dressing when caring for callas

Growing and caring for calla lilies also requires regular feeding. For people living in climates where temperatures never drop below freezing, it would be interesting to have callas blooming all year round. This is doable, but takes a little more work and attention from the gardener. Although the plant should be fed once a year, this will not be enough for continuous flowering, then it needs to be done more often. A regular feeding schedule of 2 times a month or adding liquid fertilizer to the water or compost to the soil – and your flower will certainly bloom all year round without experiencing any stress. At the same time, keep an eye on your plant so as not to overfeed. Signs of overfeeding include burnt leaf edges, indicating excess nitrogen. The less sunlight a flower receives, the more nutrients you need to give it in order to bloom favorably. Therefore, strive for the correct location of the flower in your garden and control everything properly.

How to grow callas in pots

When growing calla lilies in pots, the rules are somewhat different. The plant still needs a lot of water, even more than the free growing variety as a lot of the water is lost in the pot, but now stick to a different feeding system. He will need top dressing if it turns out that the supply of nutrients has been exhausted in the pot, but it may also be the other way around – a layer of fertilizer may lie in the soil. It is also very important that the calla lilies are transplanted into new soil every year, otherwise there is a great risk that the plant will die. The soil will be depleted, new bulbs will start to take up space, disease in the soil and toxic levels of the fertilizer will rise – side effects may appear.

Just change the soil once a year and the calla will be much happier and healthier.

Planting calla bulbs

Planting calla bulbs is the easiest way to quickly get a beautiful flowering plant. Calla is one of the most beautiful flowers that can be grown in the garden. This exotic plant with trumpet-shaped flowers and its light fragrances make it seem like a piece of heaven is on earth.

They propagate fairly easily from bulbs or rhizomes and are quite hardy with respect to any weather conditions that might occur. Now you can briefly get acquainted with how callas grow and how to plant them correctly.

What is an onion

The bulb, or rhizome, is where the plant grows from. Although the bulb is not exactly a root, it resembles a very large and thick outgrowth of the root from which shoots will grow. As soon as a sufficient supply of water and nutrients accumulates in the bulb, it begins to sprout, which, over time, through the process of photosynthesis, will supply energy to the entire plant. Simply put, the bulb is exactly what gives us the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of these flowers.

These bulbs, or as they are properly called, rhizomes, you can buy in local stores if you are satisfied with the look of the plant.

The formation of new calla bulbs and reproduction

Like most other plants with bulbs, also known as rhizomes, they spread by increasing the number of bulbs. A bulb in a certain area may eventually spread throughout the area if this process is not stopped. In such cases, you need to dig up extra bulbs and throw them away, replant, or simply give them to relatives and friends. This must be done regularly, as the plant will constantly divide and this process itself will not stop.

Planting calla bulbs

Planting a calla with a bulb is very simple. They are quite hardy and will grow in almost any soil, although it must be well drained or the bulb will rot. The place for planting should almost always remain in the sun, but if the climate is very hot and very sunny, then you need to consider planting the plant in light shade. The bulb should be planted horizontally with the germinating ends up in a small hole about 10 cm deep. Of course, follow the instructions on the package of bulbs for depth if the depth is different from our recommendations. If you want to plant more than one bulb, then there should be at least 12 cm between them so they get enough room to grow really well. Water the flower bed abundantly so that the bulb takes root. Calla lilies can hardly tolerate even slight frosts – if you live in a temperate climate where the temperature drops below zero, then you can plant them in a pot in the same way as in the ground until the frost passes. Just remember that flowers should be repotted once a year.

Completion of the vegetation cycle

As long as the plant is kept in moist soil, it will continue to grow, bloom and eventually spread. If nothing is done to prevent it, it can end up taking over the entire flower bed, and while this would be nice, it’s rare that the garden owner wants it. Like most other flowers growing from a bulb, calla rhizome produces new bulbs that look a bit like potatoes. These new bulbs can be dug up at any time and either discarded or replanted. Therefore, the gardener, if desired, can make a whole garden from one bulb.

How is calla grown from seed?

Although most people prefer to simply separate the bulbs to propagate the plant, a method of propagating from seeds is known. Some stores have a wide variety of seeds in stock and may order you if they are out of stock.

But if you have an additional interest in certain species, reach out to friends and neighbors who grow callas and ask them to collect the seed pods as soon as they are ripe; try growing flowers from scratch. Usually calla lilies from seeds retain all the decorative properties of their parents.

Growing calla seedlings

Before thinking about planting calla seeds for cultivation, you need to germinate them. This is done simply: on a folded damp paper towel lying on a plate, you need to place the seeds. After that, you need to cover the seeds with another part of a folded damp paper towel and place it all in a dark and cool place. Make sure the paper towel stays damp, but never wet, as this can cause seed rot. After a couple of days, the seeds should show signs of growth, and those that don’t seem to be growing can be thrown away. With other seeds, you can proceed to the next step.

Pre-seeding

There are many reasons why it is not necessary to sow seeds to grow calla flowers right in the garden among birds and mice. There are many dangers for small seeds out there, so it’s best to plant them in a small pot so they can sprout strong and healthy. There is a special land for seedlings, which is sold in the store, it works great. As a rule of thumb, it’s best to plant two seeds in each pot, right under the top layer of soil. The seeds will still be in danger of rotting at this stage so it’s best to feed the soil through the bottom of the pot, if the ground gets too dry just spray some water on top.

As soon as the plant shows signs of further growth, it’s time for the next sorting – the weak ones must be discarded, and the stronger seeds that have given good shoots, prepare for the next step.

Repotting calla flowers

After a while, you can plant calla flowers for real, in large pots or in your backyard. The sprouts should get used to normal soil. Before transplanting, you need to thoroughly rinse the roots, you must do this very carefully so as not to introduce any new bacteria or diseases that accompany them in a new place of residence.

The flower is big enough to go without watering, so give it plenty of water, but don’t overdo it, and then just sit back and wait for it to bloom.

Reproduction of calla seeds – feel like a breeder

The exciting thing about propagating calla lilies from seeds is that you can never be sure what you will end up with. To get seeds, it is possible that you yourself will have to play bees, pollinating flowers. The fact is that the peculiarity of pollination and all other sexual reproduction is that the result will not have traits from both parents – a feces grown from seeds will actually rarely look like either of its parents. With luck, you may end up with a brand new species that will grow in your yard.

Kinds

Calla lilies are conditionally divided by the shade of the flower into the following varieties:

White (clickable links).

Reds .

Pink .

Yellow .

Black .

Violet .

Blue .

Some interesting facts:

  • perennial bulbs ;
  • kala flowers are not actually lilies ;
  • is a floral genus of twenty-eight species;
  • originally grows in Africa; in nature, it grows mainly in swampy areas;
  • grown from modified finger-like roots known as tubers;
  • flowering time – late spring;
  • the word “Kalla” comes from the Greek term, which means “beautiful”;
  • the roots are poisonous.

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