Now is the Time to Buy Tubers and Rhizomes for Summer-Blooming Flowers

Posted on Tuesday, April 5, 2022 · Leave a Comment 

I like dahlias. They are bright and come in many colors with blossoms from the size of daisies to the size of dinner plates. My wife, Cindy, LOVES dahlias. Every year we have discussions about how many we should plant and where they might go. I believe there is a thing as too many dahlias. Cindy does not.

 

Each fall we dig up our dahlias a week or so after the first hard frost but before the ground freezes. We store them in a cool basement in boxes filled with sphagnum moss or sawdust that is lightly moist. The problem is, each plant produces a dozen or more tubers, and each and every one will produce a new plant the next summer.

 

If you have purchased dahlia plants at a greenhouse in the past, maybe this year you would like to try planting some tubers. They tend to be less expensive, and there is definitely more variety. Go to your local garden center or go on-line and order tubers.

 

Choose a 6-inch pot and fill it three quarters full with potting soil. Place the tuber so that it is lying flat on the surface, and cover with a few inches of potting soil. Pat it down, water lightly, and let it be. When it is ready, it will send up shoots and then it will need some bright lights. They have tiny “eyes” or growing points, and if you can spot one, be sure to plant it on the top side. But eyes are not always easily identified.

 

I grow ours on a plant stand with fluorescent lights, and have never tried them on a bright windowsill, but I guess that would work, too. If you find your plants on a windowsill are floppy or pale, switch to artificial lights if you have them.

 

Calla lily growing in a pot on my front steps rotated

I  LOVE calla lilies. These beauties are not true lilies at all, but members of the Arum family (which includes Jack-in-the-Pulpit, skunk cabbage and the house plants Dieffenbachia and Philodendron). Calla lilies are perennial in warm climates, but, like dahlias and gladiolas, must be dug and brought inside before the winter here. Now is the time to start some calla rhizomes (a bulb-like modified stem) indoors. Plant them with the smooth side down.

 

One of the advantages of growing calla lilies is that they are not true lilies, hence not bother by that dastardly red bug, the lily-leaf beetle. The lily-leaf beetle attacks Oriental and Asiatic lilies that I do so love, but have given up growing. Calla lilies also bloom for a much longer time than true lilies, though they lack the fragrance of Oriental lilies.

 

To start calla lilies indoors now, buy rhizomes now at your local garden center or from a reputable supplier. The rhizomes need to be planted about 3 inches deep, then covered with potting mix. It is a good plant for people who tend to overwater their houseplants, as they thrive in moist soil. (By the way, start doubling the water to your rosemary plants if you over-wintered any. Otherwise they will dry out and die).

 

Once summer is here you can either transplant your potted calla to a nice sunny spot, or you can keep it in the pot and move it outside. Come fall, you will need to bring them inside, as temperatures around 20 will kill them. Callas need to go dormant in winter.

 

This Canna lily has purple leaves and stands nearly 6 feet tall

When buying some calla lily rhizomes at my local garden center, I also bought some gladiolus corms (commonly called bulbs). My gardening grandfather loved growing gladioli, and won ribbons at the Worcester, Massachusetts county fair most years.

 

Gladiolus corms are relatively inexpensive so most gardeners don’t bother saving them. Classic colors are red, yellow, pink and purple. I recently bought bulbs that will produce flowers with pink, white, and white with pink designs at my local garden center. I will wait and plant them directly in the soil in my garden in June.

 

Another summer beauty is the canna lily. We grew some that were six-feet tall last summer and they bloomed from mid-summer till fall. Buy rhizomes now and start them indoors to get a good jump on the season. They come in various sizes, and with green or purple foliage.

 

My favorite summer bulb plant is called a variety of common names: peacock orchid, sword lily, or fragrant gladiolus (even though this plant is not an orchid, a lily or a gladiolus). That’s why I like Latin names. If you ask for Acidanthera murielae, plant-knowledgeable people around the world will know what you mean. But for now, I’ll refer to it as sword lily.

 

Sword lilies are highly fragrant in the evening

The sword lily has long, narrow leaves – like swords- that stand 18 inches or more tall. The blossoms are white with deep purple markings in the center of the 6-petaled flower, along with a little yellow at the very center. You get 2 or 3 blossoms per stem, and they are enticingly fragrant, particularly in the evening. I’ll plant them now, 8 to 12 bulbs three inches deep in a 12-inch pot and grow them on the deck this summer.

 

I don’t know about you, but I need all the green growing things around me I can get as mud season lingers on. So get your summer bulbs now, before they are all sold out and start a few indoors.

 

Henry is an organic gardener living in Cornish Flat, NH. Reach him by e-mail at henry.homeyer@comcast.net. 

Filed under Article · Tagged with calla lily, canna lily, sword lily

Planting Bulbs Now for Summer Blooms

If you’re home from work and champing at the bit to DO SOMETHING, planting some bulbs now for summer blossoms might be just your ticket. I recently got some calla lilies and sword lilies and planted them in pots.

Calla lilies come in various colors and white

Calla lilies ( Zantedeschia aethiopica) come in various colors and sizes. The blossoms are hard to describe: they are often called trumpet shaped, but they aren’t really. Each is an asymmetrical trumpet called a spadix with a yellow spathe inside. The spathe is a narrow, pointed protrusion made of tiny flowers. You’ve seen a spathe if you’ve looked inside a Jack-in-the-pulpit.

Grocery stores often sell pots of short callas with pink blossoms, or taller white ones. These beauties are not true lilies at all, but members of the Arum family which includes Jack-in-the-Pulpit, skunk cabbage and the house plants Dieffenbachia and Philodendron.

Calla lilies are perennial in warm climates, but, like dahlias and gladiolas, must be dug and brought inside before the winter here. They are relatively inexpensive. I paid $12.99 for 3 big rhizomes (a bulb-like modified stem) at Gardeners Supply (www.gardeners.com). Now is the time to start some calla rhizomes indoors.

The calla rhizomes I planted were, at first, mysterious. Unlike daffodils or tulips, there was no obvious top or bottom. No pointy end to go up. But I did a little research and found that the smooth, rounded side goes down and the gnarly side (covered with little bumps and protrusions) goes up. They should be planted 3 to 5 inches deep, and given a square foot of soil surface for 3 bulbs.

I planted 3 calla lily bulbs in an 11-inch pot, which is a little crowded according to the recommendation on the package. Others I planted solo in 6-inch pots. In either case, it’s important to have good deep pots full of rich potting mix. I had saved plenty of last year’s potting soil at the end of the season, and I mixed it with equal quantities of composted cow manure and added a tablespoon of organic fertilizer. Later I will occasionally add some fish and seaweed fertilizer to the water I give my calla lilies.

Everything I read indicates that calla lilies like rich soil and plenty of moisture. That contradicts what I have seen: in Portugal I saw wild calla lilies growing in dry places with poor soil – including right alongside railroad tracks. What is certain is that they do best with plenty of sunshine, six hours or more per day.

One of my favorite summer bulb plants is called a variety of common names: peacock orchid, sword lily, or fragrant gladiolus (even though this plant is not an orchid, a lily or a gladiolus). That’s why I like Latin names. If you ask for Acidanthera murielae, plant-knowledgeable people around the world will know what you mean. But for now, I’ll refer to it as sword lily.

Sword lilies are easy to grow and very fragrant

The sword lily has long, narrow leaves – like swords- that stand 18 inches or more tall. The blossoms are white with deep purple markings in the center of the 6-petaled flower, along with a little yellow at the very center. You get 2 or 3 blossoms per stem, and they are enticingly fragrant, particularly in the evening.

The smooth side of a calla lily goes down

Like the calla lily, sword lilies are tropical so we can grow them here, but they won’t overwinter outdoors. But the corms (bulbs) will survive in a 60 degree location all winter, and you can re-plant them next year. I have planted them in the ground, but favor them in pots because they are so fragrant, they are wonderful on the deck.

According to the directions, you can plant a dozen bulbs in a square foot of soil. So I planted a dozen in 12-inch pot, each bulb 3 to 4 inches deep. You can plant them directly in the soil, of course, but I like starting the early for a mid-summer bloom instead of a fall bloom.

Other summer bulbs include gladiolous, crocosmia, ranunculus and best of all, elephant ear. Those are all delightful plants, each with its own requirements and benefits. All need plenty of sun and to be brought inside before winter.

But in the space remaining, let me say that in Cameroon, West Africa where I spent nearly 4 years as a young man with the Peace Corps, elephant ear was a food staple. There it was called cocoyam, and it was the corm, or bulb, that was boiled, pounded and served as a main dish with a spicy sauce, and perhaps a little meat.

This elephant ear plant should get huge this summer

Elephant ear leaves get huge – three feet long and half as wide. The leaves are also edible, and substituted for the non-existing Tupperware container in Cameroon. Just wrap your lunch in a leaf, tie it up, and go off to the fields. They produce no noticeable flower.

Because of my long association with elephant ear, I often grow it. It likes full sun and wet soil, or at least moist soil. I have grown it in the ground, but mostly grow it in a pot. I have had one all winter, indoors. I had cut it back in the fall, and thought it might stay dormant, but it has been growing in a west-facing window, though the leaves are very small now. You can order corms and plant them now. Each bulb can weigh a pound or more.

So if you are suffering from cabin fever, get some summer-blooming bulbs, a bag of potting soil, and get going. It’ll give you something to look forward to!

You may reach Henry by e-mail at henry.homeyer@comcast.net. He is a UNH Master Gardener and the author of 4 gardening books.

Copyright © 2014 Henry Homeyer

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