[medit-plants] Re: intro/question

Horace -

An interesting question - thank you!!

I have also tried to grow Zantedeschia aethiopica 'Pink Mist' with curiously poor results.  I did some research and learned some interesting facts.  Apparently this species is naturally distributed across a wide area of South Africa and beyond.  These regions range from the mediterranean climate region of the Western Cape into other areas that are wet in summer and dry in winter.  Often this might indicate a highly adaptable plant, but in this case it seems that specific plants in these diverse areas have adapted to the specific conditions.  The 'Pink Mist' form was collected in the wild from the SUMMER RAINFALL part of the range.  It seems to do well in colder climates where people life the bulbs and store them over winter (like they do Dahlias), planting them out again for the wet summer growing period.  I suspect that this particular clone does not like wet and cold and it is likely that the rhizomes rotted away during our winter.  Interesting.


On Mon, Mar 13, 2017 at 8:54 PM, Hortus Confusus <h*@gmail.com> wrote:
Yes! That looks like it! I did not know this name. At first i thought it was one of the other types like Gail mentioned in her response but I was told that it was the same species as the large white types.


On Mon, Mar 13, 2017 at 3:30 PM, Sean A. O'Hara <s*@gimcw.org> wrote:
Welcome Horace -

Do you perhaps mean Zantedeschia aethiopica 'Pink Mist'? (see attached photo)


On Sun, Mar 12, 2017 at 6:40 PM, Hortus Confusus <h*@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello fellow gardeners!!
I live in California and recently became a gardener.
I chose my e-mail name because of a nickname. You see my actual name is Horace. Friends have had fun with my name for years, I guess cuz its a little unusual. Upon retirement I started getting into gardening and so my nickname became "Hortus". My wife feels my gardening style is a bit strange so she started calling me "Hortus Confusus". It became my most popular moniker!
As I am learning on my own and late in life I guess I ask a lot of dumb questions. I hope that the following question is not too much in that direction.

I grow a lot of Calla lilies, the big white kind. Love em. They grow really well by themselves which is great. Recently I found a type with a pinkish tint at the base of the flower otherwise it is identical to those I already have. Planted these new ones in the same type of ground, exposure, etc. They just pine away and eventually die!!! And don't come back when my other plants sprout when it rains in the fall. Tried it three times now over as many years and it happened each time. I suspect the guy who is growing these (the only one I know who grows them) is using some sort of cultural practice. Is there a way I can train my new Callas to grow like my existing plants?



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