Mastering Indoor Calla Lily Care: 11 Essential Tips for Success
Calla lily plants are a beautiful and classy addition to any interior space because they possess stunning blossoms and thick foliage. Indeed, caring for these splendid flowers is not a simple task that can be done if one doesn’t have a sufficient understanding of their special requirements and preferences. So, 11 top tips for successful propagation, management of pests, and creation of the best environment for the plants will be studied here.
Succeeding at the art of growing calla lilies within is the springboard for the year-round beauty of your home, regardless of your gardening experience. Now we will go indoor calla lily maintenance and explain how to ensure an appropriate environment for their healthy growth.
Choose the Right Location
A correct location is the foremost prerequisite for the growth and development of your indoor calla lilies. Plants, in strong, indirect sunshine, which looks like their natural home, can thrive. They can be kept in sufficient exposure to sunlight by placing them near a SW-facing or SE-facing window. If you have inadequate natural light in your house, you can make up the shortfall by utilizing some artificial grow lights.
Provide Adequate Water
The level of moisture in Calla lily plants needs to be maintained correctly. However, the soil is supposed to be constantly moist for these moisture-loving plants, but overwatering might be as bad as underwatering. Water your calla lilies deeply when the top inch of the soil gets dry to the touch to achieve the appropriate balance. To keep root rot away which is caused by water stagnation, ensure that the container is free draining.
Use Well-Draining Soil
In the light of calla lily care, the importance of the soil with well-drained drainage cannot be overlooked. The plants do not like the wet soil and they will rot their roots if they are constantly surrounded by water. Choose a potting mix that is compact and specially designed for indoor plants, or make your own using two parts potting soil, perlite, and sand each. The medium that supports these calla lilies is perfectly aerated and drains well, which is ideal for their optimal growth.
Maintain Humidity
As calla lilies like dampness for survival, indoor gardening is the best option for these water-attracting flowers. Nevertheless, their development may be slowed down by the dryness of the atmosphere that is usually displayed in the homes. The water and stones tray under the calla lily pots helps to increase the humidity around the plant. Leaving the water in the container produces moisture around the plants which is similar to their natural environment.
Fertilize Regularly
The calla lily plants need to be adequately fertilized so they can develop fast and remain with colorful blooms. Give your plants a balanced, water-soluble fertilizer, diluted to half strength, every two to three weeks during the growing season, usually from spring to early swing. When plants are at rest during these times, they will not display much growth so fertilization should be avoided.
Monitor Temperature
The secret of calla lilies lasting strong and vibrant is to keep the temperature stable but still be within the right number. Remember the fact that these plants prefer quite mild temperatures 60°F – 75°F (15°C – 24°C), and try to keep them in a usual indoor space, not an extreme one. Avoid this by placing the plants near warm and sunny windows, heating vents, or away from air conditioners to prevent the plants from stressing because of the temperature changes.
Trim Dead Leaves and Flowers
To make the calla lily plants look impressive and healthy irrespective of the circumstances, the plants have to do regular trimming. Do not hesitate to identify any yellow, broken, or fallen leaves that are a condition of insect or disease and destroy them. Eliminate the waste flowers as soon as possible to cut the flower risks of seed pods and redirect their energy towards more flowering.
Watch for Pests and Diseases
When it comes to effectively managing pests and diseases in the calla lilies, a proper understanding of these aspects can’t be overlooked. Keep an eye on the usual insects like mealybugs, spider mites, and caterpillars to be aware and ready for them to be around your plants. These pests go without saying that they could lead to disasters if no intervention were applied.
Watch for any sign of infestation, a small foamy surface, or a bounded area. Use neem oil or insecticidal soap the kill off insects. Moreover, try to look for the indications of the fungal infection like powdery mildew and root rot, and provide affected plants with fungicides as soon as possible.
Support Tall Stems
Some calla lily varieties cultivate long narrow stems that could demand support by any means to prevent them from bending and perhaps breaking because of the weight of the flowers. Bamboo pegs or plant supports can be enclosed to the ground near the bottom of the stem to offer support. Plants may be injured while doing that so, please be careful.
If you want the plant to grow straight and have a high yield, it is important to tie the stem to the support system such as strings for the initial time. This will allow the extension of the stem that can fully show off the detail of the flowers.
Allow Dormancy Period
As many bulbous plants have dormancy as a well-known common phenomenon, the flowers of the calla lily will also go through such a process in which their development slows down and leaves fall off altogether. During this dormancy of plants, we are lucky that they can store energy and prepare for the onset of the next season.
Have an extended period of shorter watering with no fertilizer in the bloom time and then stop completely. It will help the plant to get ready for the dormancy period. You should allow the greenery to fade and become yellow. Until they necessitate that the rhizomes be prepared for growing during the spring, store them in a cool and dry place.
Repot When Necessary
As abovementioned, overgrown lilies may grow to the size that the pot cannot contain them. This leads to root-binding which, in turn, gradually reduces the plant’s fruiting chances. Repot your calla lilies to larger pots if you notice signs of an overcrowded environment, such as roots coming out of the drainage passages or surrounding the top of the pot. Choose pots one notch in a size larger than the containers they originally had. Then, take fresh potting mix and add it to pots. You can separate the roots, and then break them into various pieces. Place the plant pieces at the initial depth you had, providing them with the space they need to grow and spread.
Conclusion:
The care of indoor Calla lilies is a pleasant and exciting job that gives people an unparalleled opportunity to enjoy their unique elegance and magnificence. What is more, you can create an optimum growth ambiance that will guarantee the best life, health, and maximum potential of your home-based calla lilies if you put into practice the 11 tactics that are presented in this article.
From proper servicing like providing watering and sunlight to vigilance against pests and pathogens, every little detail has a significant role to play in sustaining your plants. Through discovering some useful information, a bit of patience, and dedication, you will guarantee a healthy calla lily plant that will give you joy and decoration of a house for years.
Calla lilies in addition to their numerous health benefits have also been proven to exude beauty and radiance to the home and therefore you should take them up for housekeeping and watch the glory of beauty and radiance in your house.
FAQs
You can identify the time for watering your indoor calla lilies by checking the top soil inch if it remains completely dry to the touch. For example, once a week (but in more humid air and a wider temperature range – every 1-2 weeks) is a rule supported by national agencies in this field.
The most suitable kind of soil for calla lilies to grow in is the one that retains moisture better but is not too wet to hold water. For indoor plants have a lightweight potting mix or you can mixture of equal amounts of potting soil, perlite, and sand to create your own.
Calla lilies can tolerate mild direct sunlight, mostly in the morning, but they still prefer shade and bright indirect sunlight. They shouldn’t be placed where there is direct midday radiant heat because it can sunburn their flowers and leaves.
In the period of growth give your indoor calla lily intensive sunlight, moisture, and feeding solution constantly which is necessary for blooming. After planting, make sure to afford them sufficient space without damaging the rhizomes.
Instead of yellowing leaves, it can mean when calla lily is grown inside, pest infection, nutrient deficiency, under watering, or over watering may all lead to that. Assess the development environment of the plant and fine-tune irrigation and re-fertilization accordingly. You must pull up the yellow leaves as fast as possible in that section to prevent the illness from traveling to all the plants.
Whereas calla lilies may be grown all year long indoors, some kinds get used most after flowering but then must rest for a while. The plants might just stay inactive or they probably completely look out dead during hibernation. Sun the foliage so that it can naturally wilt and once the dormant rhizomes need to be retained from somewhere cold and dry as you await the following growing season.
Yes, like most similar animals, dogs and cats may be poisoned by calla lilies. The actual plants also contain crystals of Calcium oxalates found inside that, when eaten can lead to rashes, salivation, vomiting, and many other symptoms. If pets access calla lilies accidentally, they should be taken away for immediate veterinary care.
Take proper cleaning measures by ensuring that the location is always clean and without debris to give resistance against viruses and bacteria. Do not wait too long for any signs of sickness, infestation, or something in between as it just might infect other plants making it faster and easier for you to act upon it. Air circulation around the plants is a major factor that should always be guarded against fungal growth. Do not overwater your plants to simulate good air circulation.
Splitting the rhizomes can be an effective method to grow the calla lilies inside. After the plants have already finished their flowering, complete with a passing period, just harvest the rhizomes and divide them into smaller fragments, each having a healthy growth point at least. Then repot the divisions by nursing them well with the right amount of water and potting mix.
When your indoor calla lilies run out of the growing room for their pots or you cannot see the roots of your lilies, you have to repot them. As a result, slower growth, reduced flowering, and roots that are pushed to the bucket top or escape through drainage holes are signs that repotting is necessary. When you change the calla lilies’ pots, use fresh potting soil, giving enough space for extension.
Even though calla lilies may be produced from seeds, this is quite not a typical process to make plants grow indoors still. The process could be complicated for the calla lily’s seeds to germinate. Moreover, the growing time could be a lengthy one until the flower fully blooms. In addition, because every seedling of the calla lily differs from its parent plant in both color and bloom structure, propagation by seed is not recommended. Most of these indoor gardeners learn that it is safer and easier for them to be able to divide the rhizomes of the calla lily to grow them.
