Callas’ beauty can be fleeting

QUESTION: My calla lilies, which are supposed to be white, are blooming, but the blooms are green! Otherwise, the plants look healthy. In fact, I’ve noticed in the past that they form seed pods. Is something wrong with them?

Calla lilies are lovely flowers, and easy to grow in containers or in the ground. The most common varieties produce white, yellow or pink flowers. That flower is technically the spathe, which wraps around the spadix, where the actual flowers grow. When the spathe turns green, it’s going through its natural life cycle on the way to making seeds.

Susan Bryant at Lakeside Callas in Dandridge, Tenn., explained that the spathe turns darker as it matures, and the outside of the spathe begins to turn green and to close up, with seeds forming inside.

“It starts turning green and closing up after a few days,” she said. Heat and lack of moisture might cause it to close up sooner. If you don’t watch them every day, it’s possible to miss the blooms.

You can cut the flower stalk off after it blooms, which will help the bulb grow larger. The foliage stays green and adds texture and interest to perennial beds. If you allow the seed pods to remain, let the seeds ripen and plant them in a pot indoors to grow over the winter, then put the new bulbs in the garden next summer.  It will take two years for the new plants to bloom, Bryant said. The offpspring may be a different color from the parent.

Callas prefer moist, well-drained soil and grow well in full sun, but they tolerate a bit of shade. In colder climates, the bulbs may need to be dug up and stored over the winter and replanted in spring. Gardeners in Middle Tennessee generally find that bulbs survive the winter in the ground.