Most tuberous and bulbous plants need to be dug in the cold season. Many beginner flower growers who have grown up a handsome man in their own flowerbed are thinking about how to store callas in the winter. What are the general rules for saving the tubers of this plant, and what mistakes can beginners make?
The main stages of preparation for wintering
In order for the tubers to be well preserved during the cold weather, they need to be dug carefully and correctly. There are some simple steps to grow amazing flowers in the new season without any problems. To learn how to store calla tubers, you need to follow these steps:
- At the very end of September, immediately after the plant fades, tubers are extracted from the soil. During this procedure, the aboveground part of the plant will need to be left untouched.
- Next comes the drying period - for two weeks the calla tubers, along with the trunks, are placed in cardboard boxes and left in a dry room.
- As soon as the leaves are easily separated from the dried stem, drying can be stopped. The tubers are freed from the aerial parts and kept in a cardboard box for another week.
- How to store callas further? Very simple - after seven days, the roots should be easily separated from the tubers. After cleaning and checking each planting instance, it will be possible to put calla lilies for storage.
How do tubers winter?
It is very important to check each spine for damage and rot. When asked how to store callas in the winter, experienced gardeners focus on the integrity of tubers. If black spots appear, they must be scraped off with a special tool or an ordinary teaspoon. After that, the tuber is left for 2-3 hours, so that the lesions are slightly dried out. Then each “scratch” must be treated with brilliant green or crumbled activated carbon. The same thing happens when you need to break the maternal root and separate the children. After the procedure, the tubers are wrapped in paper towels and stored as such in cardboard boxes. Sometimes you need to check the planting material for a new infection or rot. But with the correct treatment of such "complications" should not arise.
The box is put in a dry and cool enough place, the container should have a loose cover. When deciding how to store callas in the winter, you should not forget when to remove them in the spring. Fortunately, this method of maintaining tubers allows the plant to be healthy and viable for a long time, until the time of planting on the site comes.
Newbie Common Mistakes
It is very important to observe small tricks, so as not to damage the flower and not spoil your flower bed in the new season with small, weak plants. Knowing full well how to store callas in the winter correctly, many gardeners make a number of mistakes, which often lead to serious consequences. Firstly, you do not need to press hard on the shovel when removing the tubers - they are very delicate and easily break. If there are unseparable children on the root, you just need to wait until they are fenced off with thin scales, and only then tear them away from the mother's bulb. Secondly, all roots from the tuber need to be cut, as indicated above in the article. Otherwise, the plant will germinate during wintering. Thirdly, the temperature in the storage should always be between +3 and +7 , and the humidity is minimal. Observing these rules, you can hope for healthy, beautiful callas in the new season.