Growing plants in your garden and choosing the appropriate landscape design is a fun and rewarding activity. But what if you live in an apartment or don’t have an outdoor space to start a small garden? Does this mean that calla lily care indoors is impossible?
Fortunately, calla lily flowers are here to prove the opposite. They’re easy to grow, don’t need much effort to be maintained, and stay in bloom for quite a long time compared to other flowering plants.
Learning how to plant calla lily indoors will help you enjoy their bright colors. So, keep on reading to learn about the best calla lily care indoors tips and tricks.
Why Should You Plant Calla Lily Flowers Indoors?
Calla lilies aren’t real lilies, but they look just like them. Nevertheless, this plant grows attractively colored flowers that can be white, cream, pink, yellow, red, orange, or purple. In addition, these flowers are grown with bright deep green foliage that can be solid or speckled, depending on the species.
Because of their bright colors, calla lily flowers are always in demand as outdoor and indoor plants. So, why should you think about planting them in a pot? Here are a few reasons.
- Calla lily flowers grow beautifully in pots, and in the right growing conditions, they’ll bloom and grow brightly colored flowers.
- The plant pots can be transferred easily to face the sun or even to be placed outside if you need to expose your calla lilies to more sunlight.
- The flowers bloom for about two months, adding color to your indoor space.
- It’s easy to cut calla lily flowers to make attractive flower arrangements. Calla lilies can last up to two weeks in a vase with proper care.
How to Grow Calla Lilies as an Indoor Plant
In their native habitat, calla lily flowers grow along river banks, lakes, and ponds’ margins, providing a colorful border. This explains this plant’s love for moist and humid conditions, and this is what you should pay attention to when you’re growing them inside the house.
Calla lilies can be grown from the seeds of the berries or from the rhizomes. You can pick the berries and dry the seeds or pick the rhizomes at the end of the growing season. New calla lilies growing from rhizomes will grow and bloom faster than the ones grown from the seeds.
Growing Calla Lilies from Rhizomes
This is the fastest and easiest way to grow calla lilies.
- You need a shovel to pick the rhizomes from the soil of your outdoor garden or indoor pot. Use the shovel to dig a circle around the root structure and pick it up.
- Use a soft brush to remove all the dirt from the rhizome and keep it dry and clean.
- Store the rhizome for a few days while providing it with good ventilation.
- Cut the rhizome into different sections, ensuring that every section has one root growing from it. These rhizomes can last for up to a year when kept in a moist and dark place.
- When it’s time to plant the rhizomes, use nutrient-rich potting mix and place the rhizomes at least 6 inches away from each other.
- Start watering them sparingly to help the shoots grow.
Growing Calla Lilies From Seeds
Seeds usually take more time to grow and can be less successful than using rhizomes.
- After the berries grow from the flowers, remove the seeds and use them to develop a new plant.
- Place them on a wet paper towel and cover them until they start to germinate. When they start to grow, place the germinating seeds in a soilless medium.
- Move the seeds to a well-draining pot after adding two inches of soil.
- Add enriching food to grow the plants.
- Keep the soil moist and remove the weakest shoots from each pot.
Picking the Right Conditions to Grow Indoor Calla Lily Flowers
Maintaining the right conditions will help your calla lily plant grow easily.
Temperature and Humidity
Calla lily flowers can be grown all year long when grown inside the house as long as you’re maintaining the right temperature. With temperature control and keeping the temperature between 60 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit, these plants can survive the cold season.
Misting the plants is necessary, especially during the hot months, to keep the leaves and soil hydrated. Using a humidifier can also maintain the needed levels of humidity and moisture inside the house.
Sunlight
Calla lilies can’t survive the cold, so even an outdoor pot should be brought inside when the temperature drops below 50 degrees Fahrenheit. In the summer, the flowers will bloom when the pot is placed near a west-facing window, as this will provide the indirect sunlight that the plant needs. However, in winter, the pot should be placed near an east-facing window to make sure that it’s getting enough sunlight.
Not getting enough sunlight is one of the most common problems that a calla lily plant will face when it’s placed indoors. However, you can control this issue by keeping an eye on the plant’s growth. If the growth seems stunned, you might need to leave the plant near an east-facing window more often. You can also bring it outside and leave it on a terrace or in your garden for a while until it has recovered.
Soil
Indoors and outdoors, calla lilies need well-drained soil with enough nutrients to grow and bloom. When grown inside the house, it’s recommended to use a healthy soil mix to help the rhizomes grow, and the flowers bloom.
Applying plant food once or twice a month will keep your calla lily flowers in excellent condition. Using a nitrogen fertilizer will be a great choice, as long as you’re sure that there isn’t too much nitrogen in the soil. In this case, you need a phosphorus fertilizer to keep the growing conditions more balanced.
You should use a pH kit to test the acidity of the soil, as calla lilies prefer slightly acidic soil. If the soil is too alkaline, you can add sulfur, aluminum sulfate, or some coffee grounds. Nitrogen-based fertilizers also can also lower the pH level of the soil, but you shouldn’t use too much of it to keep the nutrients balanced.
Choosing the planting pot is just as important as nourishing the soil with the needed nutrients. The pot should have enough draining holes to allow the excess water to escape in case of overwatering. Without these holes, the roots will rot, and the plant will suffocate.
Watering
Although calla lily flowers prefer to grow near water bodies and need more water than most flowering plants, too much water can cause the rhizomes to rot. You should start watering the plant less often until the first shoots appear. After that, you should water your calla lily plant more often to help the flowers bloom.
In summer, you’ll need to water your calla lily plant more often to keep it hydrated. However, as the flowers start to die out, you need to skip watering until the plant has dried to prompt the dormancy period.
When calla lilies are dormant during winter, you should avoid watering them completely. Although the plant will look dead in the pot, it won’t be. Before the warm season, you should start watering it one more time to help the shoots grow.
How Can You Grow Indoor Calla Lily Flowers For Multiple Seasons
Calla lily rhizomes can grow and support the blooming flowers for several seasons when they’re stored and protected. Here’s what you need to do.
- After the blooming season, remove all the dead foliage and leaves. Keep on trimming the stem, so it might look dead, as this will protect the plant’s internal energy and help it bloom in the next season.
- Keep the pot in the dark, dry place, maintaining a temperature that is at least 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The rhizomes should never be left to freeze.
- If you’re digging out the rhizomes, keep them in a container while maintaining a low level of humidity.
- Keep the plants dormant for a couple of months. After that, you can keep them for three months if you water them at least once to protect them from shriveling.
- When the temperature rises, divide the rhizomes to be able to grow them for multiple seasons.
- Harden off the rhizomes before growing them in a pot by keeping them in partial shade for at least a week and watering them to prepare them for the growing season. Gradually, introduce your plant to more sun by leaving it on the terrace or exposing it to more sunlight to protect it from scorching.
- After the calla lily plant has been accustomed to the summer’s sun, move it to its permanent location and start to water it more often, but slightly sparingly, until the shoots begin to grow. It usually takes a couple of months after ending the dormancy period for the sprouts to grow.
- Protect your indoor plant from the hot sun during the hottest months and times of the day. Make sure that your plant is getting partial sunlight by exposing it to the sun in the early morning or late afternoon.
How Long Can Calla Lily Plants Last Indoors?
Because you can control the climate inside your house, the calla lily plant can stay alive all year long. However, this isn’t recommended.
Growing all year long puts too much strain on the plant, eventually draining its energy. As a result, the plants will grow fewer flowers or might not bloom at all in late summer, although you might be providing it with the sun, water, and food it needs.
It’s highly recommended to let the plant go dormant for at least two or three months every year. This will preserve the plant’s energy and allow it to recover. As a result, when the temperature increases one more time, the shoots will appear fast, and the flowers will bloom within a couple of months.
Deadheading the plant frequently will allow it to bloom more and longer. This action preserves the plant’s energy, so all the nutrients are reserved for the blooming flowers to grow and add color.
Why Won’t My Indoor Calla Lily Plant Bloom?
The lack of blooming is quite common when growing indoor calla lilies. There are several reasons that might cause this problem.
- Using the wrong plant food can prevent the calla lilies from blooming. When there’s too much nitrogen in the plant’s soil, the calla lily will grow stunning foliage, but it won’t bloom. In this case, applying a phosphorus-rich fertilizer will solve the problem.
- Not watering the calla lily frequently can also stop the plant’s growth and prevent blooming. Also, you shouldn’t wait until the soil is dry because this plant appreciates moisture. Instead, you should water your plant when the first inch of the soil is dry to protect the rhizomes from dying.
- Lack of sunlight is another problem that most indoor calla lilies suffer from and will eventually affect their blooming. Unlike outdoor plants, indoor calla lilies might not receive enough sunlight during the growing season, which will eventually prevent the flowers from blooming.
If the leaves seem wilted, you should place your calla lilies nearer to a window, where they can get a few hours of direct sunlight. You might also consider taking the pot outside if it’s possible.
- Receiving too much sunlight can also prevent blooming. Too much sunlight will scorch the leaves, leaving a brown margin on the edges and preventing the flowers from blooming. Calla lilies love the sun, but they prefer partial sunlight over bright sunlight exposure, especially if you live in a warmer climate.
Wrap Up on Calla Lily Care Indoors
Calla lily plants can grow indoors when the right conditions are maintained. You can grow the calla lilies from rhizomes or seeds, and you should water them less often to help the plant go into dormancy.
Applying plant food is necessary to maintain the right soil conditions and help the flowers bloom. Calla lilies need to stay dormant for at least two months, although they can stay alive all year long inside the house.