How much sun does the area get, and how much water? Does the house provide a lot of shade? Does a house overhang stop rain from getting to the bed?

What sort of 'Calla lily' is it? That name is applied to relatively hardy Zantedeschia aethiopica but also to more tender and temperamental types.

give us the numbers on tomato fert .. ken

We're having the same problem with calla lily here (7B/8A); it's in a full-sun daylily bed with good soil. The day lilies bloom their hearts out but the callas-- zilch.

It's also a rampant spreader here. Showing lots of insect damage. Yech.

Okay, I have just got 2 flowers again on the plants tht have overwintered, I used 9-12-12 flower and vegetable fert about aweek before the 2 flowers bloomed, I think the flowers would've come out anyway, even if I didn't apply the fertilizer, but, I may be wronge.

Here in Z5, I saw this one at a neighbors and I was shocked to see it is growing as a perennial and more so to see even 1 bloom. She said she bought it at Home Depot last year as a perennial. She probably has not fertilized it, but I will suggest that to her. The foliage is so nice, I think its worth keeping even if it doesn't bloom.

Zone have some consideration but the type of winter in cold zones and type of summer in some cases in the warm zones.

Although I am a zone 6 it seems it would be better for survival of on the line of hardy. But my zone get a lot of freeze thaw, rain moisture followed by below zero temps. Bulbs cannot take moisture and cold. If you get dry winters and lots of snow (insulation) you have a better chance of survival in a lower zone than a higher zone that is wet with little snow.

Last winter here was kind of average and a bit of a mix. We don't get a lot of freeze/thaw, nor a lot of rain but some. The snow insulation was not that great. We had periods without snowcover. A lot of the soil is construction fill, so I can see where bulbs would like that.

It will be interesting to see if this "perennial" makes it through a 2nd winter.

The one you pictured is not a perennial for our zone, I think it is zone 7 or 8. There is a white one that is a zone 6 but that one is iffy, I love the flowers and the leaves. I take the definite route and plant them in pots and put it in the laundry room for the winter. i do not have to water or bother it all winter.

March i place it in the garden or on the patio in the summer. It is packed with blooms and it blooms all summer and it is beautiful. I have blooms some yrs in October.

I'm zone 6a and I have had mine come back for at least 2 winters. I have mine planted deeply and mulched with coconut coir mulch. They are in a raised bed up against the brick wall of my house. WE get lottsa moisture in winter and cold temps. Last year wasn't really cold for zone 6 . but, the winter before was. I just only get 2 blooms, next year I'll be using fert for blooming plants. I also took some of my new plants that I rIpped from the bunch of new ones in spring and planted them in a bed further from the house, it's a raised bed too, and used the same mulch to see what happens. They are the zone 8 ones, I just never lifted them in fall. The foliage is really nice, just hardly any blooms.

You can try bloom booster fert next yr. If that does give you the flower amount you want you will have to decide if you want flowers or be satisfied with what you are getting. I have figured out what works for me because I like the foliage and also love the flowers I want a lot of both. So I do the pots. Surviving and performing are different results.

marquest, you may be right about the "surviving and blooming" thing, but, I am thinking if they are surviving, they should also bloom. I don't see why if they are putting out gobs of foliage, why not bloom also. Usually, folks would say too much foliage and no blooms would be too much nitrogen and not enough either Phosphorus, or is it potassium? But, I don't recall ever fertilizing the Calla Lilies at all.

And I have had the same problem with some Canna lilies, which I have just planted this spring, but, I haven't fertilized them at all. I have GIANT leaved plants, but no flowers. I used some bagged soil to plant them in. It has fertilizer built in to the mix, it was VIGARO bagged soil from Home Depot. I used the same for my tomatoes in a bed that was in a wooden trough. They bloomed well and I have lottsa tomatoes this year. I will add that the raised bed with the Calla lilies in it did not get filled with the same Vigaro mix. It was filled with some bagged soil from Lowes or Wal-Mart. Maybe next year it will need some fertilizer for blooming plants, maybe the "bloom booster" that you mentioned. But, now, of course it is near fall, so I will not want to add any "bloom booster". I'll be lifting the CANNA lilies. I MAY leave a couple in the ground, I have several "pups" emerging on the sides of 2 of the CANNA lillies. I know my mom's cat's are peeing around these plants so lottsa nitrogen there, but, I never added any fertilizer. I watered them at least every 4-5 days, more often when we got into the 90'sF.

I always had trouble with late blooming Cannas. Once again I grow them in pots. They cannot get to much water. The one I grew in my pond bloomed its head off.

I think they are tropical plants that start to grow months before they would grow in our climate. So I grow them in pots so I get flowers earlier with the Cannas. I never tried to grow the calla lilies in ground so I do not know when they come up in the garden but they start growing in the pots in March. When I put them out in April or early May they are a good size. So they start blooming early.

I found a really big Calla Lily at my local nursery that is 5' tall and the leaves are as big as Elephant Ears. It only had one bloom that was three times the size of my regular Calla's I did not get a pic of the flower. I cannot wait for next yr when it is filled out and lots of those huge blooms