Five tips on how to store callas at home during the winter

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.

How to dig up callas correctly?

The time for this technological operation is after the first frost, approximately:

• early October in the middle zone,
• early November - in more southern regions.

There is no need to be afraid that the first small frosts will damage the plant. On the contrary, this will be a signal for him about the end of the vegetative period. The plant will stop using nutrients to produce leaves as it begins to prepare for dormancy.

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.

Advice

It is best to dig up calla lilies with a garden fork.This way there is less chance of damaging the delicate parts of the plant.

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. You can wash off the remaining soil with running water under a tap or a garden hose. Try not to let the stream be too strong. High water pressure can damage the “children” of calla lilies that have not yet separated from the adult plant.

Drying callas

Having dug up calla lily tubers that you have grown yourself, you will most likely be surprised by their striking difference from the planting material that you purchased before planting in your own garden. Now these are strong, large and beautiful specimens. Before setting aside the root tubers to dry, you need to carefully inspect them.

It is advisable to discard tubers with signs of rotting. If this is a particularly valuable variety and the damage is minor, you need to strip the damaged tissue to a healthy base. It is best to do this with a teaspoon or a sharp garden tool.

Advice

Damaged and peeled tuber tissue must be disinfected with a solution of ordinary brilliant green or sprinkled with crushed coal. You can use activated carbon for this purpose.

Rejected material must be disposed of, but under no circumstances should it be placed in a compost heap. Such actions can contribute to the spread of the disease to other plants. Low cardboard or wooden boxes are best suited for drying root tubers at home.You can use plastic fruit boxes lined with cardboard or old newspapers.

Conditions for high-quality drying of calla lilies:

• dark and cool place;
• good air circulation;
• lack of sunlight;
• temperature not higher than 15-20⁰С.

The best premises may be a garage, a ventilated dry cellar or basement, or a barn. It is better to place boxes with calla lilies rhizomes in one row. After a few days, you need to completely remove the dry leaves, and after another week, the roots, which by this time will be removed very easily. When the roots are not removed, the plant may not begin to grow in time, without going through a full dormant period.

During this period, you should not separate the “babies” from the mother plant. They have not yet fenced themselves off from it with a special film - there is a great danger of causing injury to the plant. It is rational to separate the “babies” in winter. Then they ripen and can serve as full-fledged planting material. If this happens, the damaged area is dried and again disinfected with brilliant green or charcoal. The drying period can take from two to three weeks, depending on the ambient humidity.

Storing callas for winter storage

So, what do you need to prepare for wintering? First of all – suitable containers. The best option for this would be thick paper bags or cardboard boxes with ventilation holes. If you store a large collection of various varieties, you need to label them so that in the spring you do not make mistakes in choosing the color scheme when composing a composition of calla lilies. The best material for this would be thick foil - a material that does not rot or deteriorate.

Advice

The name of the variety can be written on foil by squeezing out the letters with a regular pen or knitting needle.The tag is attached to the package or to the side of the box.

The main condition for proper storage is the isolation of root tubers from each other and air circulation between them. In order to isolate the tubers from each other, a substrate is poured into a bag or box between the tubers, which can be used as:

• moss;
• sawdust;
• vermiculite;
• shavings.

If a sick specimen ends up in such a storage facility at home, the insulation will reliably protect other tubers from rot.

Advice

Although high humidity is not welcome, wrinkled and overly dried tubers should be sprinkled with water from a spray bottle to prevent them from drying out.

The optimal temperature for storing calla root tubers is 5-7⁰C. Ideal conditions for storing them are a fairly dry room that has good ventilation. If this is a basement, then the harvest should not be stored in it. During storage, fruits and vegetables release moisture and ethylene gas. These factors provoke the awakening of tubers too early, as well as their rotting. If it is impossible to allocate a separate room, then you should at least try to equip a separate compartment in the basement with an exhaust or supply ventilation.

It is advisable to have no lighting so as not to provoke the plants to start the growing season too early. The rest period takes two months or more. This is exactly how long the plant needs to fully recover. All this time you need to closely monitor their health, periodically inspecting the tubers.

Overwintering a potted plant

When calla lilies are grown as a houseplant, they also need a period of rest. To do this, the pot with the plant after flowering is moved to a cool and dark place in order to stimulate the end of the growing season.Watering the plant also needs to be reduced. You can dig up the tubers and process them using the above technology, or you can leave them to overwinter directly in a pot or container.

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.

Advice

“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.