I do not have Calandiva, but have K. blossfeldiana, which Calandiva is a mutant form of. I do not know about 'too much' light - mine gets best color in lots of sun. Otherwise, blooms are very washed-out color, much more light than in full sun. I also keep it outside during summer. I keep mine in plastic pots and in very inorganic mix, they get rained on if raining and usually get watered from a garden hose. I really do not fuss about them.

Apologies for this late reply. I appreciate the advice offered but have yet to find an answer. In hopes of the answer being 'it needs more light,' I moved the planter over to the window. The blooms continued growing paler and paler. I'm including pictures this time.

The white patches on these blooms really confuse me, and the grapefruit orange has turned into a sort of salmon or coral color.

@User, I checked the article you linked but found nothing about changing bloom color. It DID, however, tell me more about this little flower than I'd found on other sites, so thanks for that! Your mention of Thanksgiving cactus (anything like Christmas cactus?) gave me somewhere else to look for answers.

@rina_Ontario,Canada 5a I'm not sure how our environmental zones match up, or whether what works for your zone would work for mine...? The region I call home (US, southwestern Missouri, sometimes called the Ozark Plains or Ozark Highlands) gets a lot of rain and torrential rain between blinding burning sun and heat during the summer. (It kills full-sun drought-tolerant plants.) I have a feeling if I put this plant outside even for a few hours, I'd find a shriveled flowering corpse when I returned.

Since increasing the sunlight didn't improve the color, I'm going to move the plant somewhere shadier for a time to see if that does the trick. While waiting, I'll keep looking for answers.

Pls. post follow-up about color after changing location to bit more shade. I would like to know if that helps - not having exactly same plant. Having K. blossfeldiana, here is comparison of color of blooms, in shadier spot and sunnier spot. Inflorescence is also longer - etiolated, if in shade: (exactly same plant) :

Your and mine plants are not exactly same, but have lots in common (yours being mutation of mine).

That's certainly a lovely shade of yellow! I'll certainly take and post followup pictures after it's had time to adjust. The complicated part is finding where I can move this thing without completely removing all light. I love our loft but the lack of windows is such a hindrance to my plant addiction.

I've moved the planter to the den - only one window which is, oddly enough, in the wall between the den and the living room. It doesn't get enough light from that window but I've set up a small growlight on a timer - I think either six or eight hours a day? - to test the light change.

A more accurate photo of the flowers, now that my camera is charged again.

The setup - plant on shelf, growlight in the lamp facing downward, and the window overhead with afternoon sunlight. The overhead light's on, otherwise the room would be barely bright enough to see in.

I'm checking this every couple days. And now, we wait!

So far, no noticeable change in the color of the flowers. Maybe it's a matter of something missing in the soil, like Hydrangeas and iron?

Amanda,

I've grown a lot of Kalanchoes, although strangely not K. b. or its laboratory creation 'Calendiva', but there's a liquid one can add to water (I think it's called SuperBloom or something like that) that have a high phosphorus (middle number in the NPK ratio) content.

I would doubt that plant is getting nearly enough light. It would probably do better right on the windowsill, it seems like it is several feet below at which light is probably minimal/none from a plant's point of view for growth and photosynthesis. Even the supplemental grow light seems too far away and probably is not helping much. It may continue to exist for a while but I don't think it will do well in the long term.

Like cactusmcharris I suspect that nurseries add something to the water to get different colours in the blooms. Either your soil needs to be more strongly acidic or slightly alkaline

@woodnative are you referring to the photo when you say the plant should be in the windowsill? If you read the text accompanying it, you'll find that the photo shows an interior room with a window into the living room. The glass is roughly 12' above the floor and lets in only enough light to prevent stubbed toes. The layouts of these lofts are...interesting, to say the least.

Every other plant I own, I keep in the living room - some on the windowsill, some on the top shelf of the corner desk against the window, and some on the plantstand with timed grow-lights overhead. The window is south-facing and the only buildings with roofs as high as our loft windows are either on other sides of our building or several blocks away. I've actually gotten sunburns from sitting by that window too long. My monster aloe plants burn in that window and end up with red marks from the heat...hence why they're restricted to the stand. Last I heard, my next-door neighbor had a potted ornamental banana tree thriving in her living room.

Although the Calendiva couldn't handle the sunlight - again, the color faded more, they stopped flowering, stopped blooming, then the whole plant started looking depressing - it's quite enough for my other houseplants. I've gotten plenty of plants to thrive inside which usually only survive outdoors or under heavy grow-lights. Currently, I have a planter of petunias attempting world domination from the top shelf of the corner hutch (up against the window) last year's catnip bolting to seed, Zinnias, a planter of what was supposed to be painted daisies but is instead turning out to be some sort of poppy, and some Nasturtium seedlings all in the window and on the shelf. The only thing keeping any of those plants down is some BUG I haven't identified.

Thanks for trying to help!

@cactusmcharris, interior BC Z4/5 and @niksouthafrica, thank you for your advice - that's definitely going to be my next move! ...as soon as I can walk again. Until this brace comes off, though, it looks like I'm restricted to doing what I can with what I have.

• Check mineral content and PH of the fertilizers/chemicals I have on hand - maybe the leftover African Violet fertilizer?
• See if using a lower-UV grow-light bulb changes anything at all - because why not?
• Trying the "rusty nail" route - starting with intentionally rusting a nail from my stash
• and figure out what the heck those tiny bugs on my zinnias are.

Thanks, everyone, and I hope summer is being kind to your gardens!

We have results!!!

The flowers are finally RED again! Not quite the red they started out, but they're growing redder by the day!

It took a while, but feeding with Miracle Gro Bloom Booster started darkening the pink color. Also, I recently moved the planter from the plantstand to the window to work on my giant aloes (one of which has its first pup!) and I forgot to move the planter back. The amount of sunlight we get during the day has started to decrease so I expected no serious damage; instead, there was improvement. During the spring and summer, being in the window made this little plant wilt and shrivel up even with appropriate watering, but now look at it!

There are buds everywhere on this little guy (gal? Plant.) and the leaves have darkened and developed some intriguing color along the edges and bottoms. New flowers are coming in red - it's a light orange-red similar to fruit punch or watermelon, but it's better than that pinkish-orange color.

This tells me two things. First, the improvements first began after I started fertilizing; clearly the fertilizer has helped to some extent. Secondly, being exposed to direct light in the window previously turned this plant into a wilting mess but now, it's improved it faster than the fertilizer alone; that sounds like I need to keep the planter shaded a bit during Summer and late Spring and put it front-and-center during Fall. Considering the same thing happens every time I grow catnip in the window, I feel a bit silly for not considering it; the amount of heat and sunlight in this window during summer has killed off full-sun plants before. Moving the planter to the Southwest corner of the window as Spring fades will provide some shade from the late afternoon sun; keeping the planter in the middle of the sill during Fall and early Spring will expose it to sunlight from dawn to dusk.

So, there were two problems - too much sunlight and heat followed by lack of sunlight, and a lack of nutrients. Thanks to everyone who patiently offered advice, and I hope y'all's gardens are thriving!