- Author: Jenni Dodini
We are lucky to be able to escape the much needed deluge of Northern California for the mostly sunny, beautiful San Diego area. Here the Bird of Paradise plants are pretty much everywhere. My plant at home has never bloomed and has been attacked by underground creatures more than once. Last year, I rescued it from an invasion of hungry underground creatures and built a fortress type of pot for it. Hopefully, it will thank me by finally blooming this year. One can only hope....
Anyway, I went to my go to sites to look up these beautiful plants, Wikipedia and Gardening Know How. Be advised that there are actual BIRDS named Bird of Paradise, so you can easily end up there when hitting links, and see lovely pictures of BIRDS!
So, here is just a little bit of what I found:
It is formally known as Strelitzia, with 5 species, from the family Strelitzaceae. It was named to honor the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Germany, which was the birthplace of Queen Charlotte of the United Kingdom. She was the wife of King George III in the latter half of the 1700s. The plant is native to South Africa where it is commonly known as the "Crane Flower". It is on the reverse side of their 50 cent coin. It is also the floral emblem of the City of LA.
Of the 5 species, the S. nicolai and S. reginae are the most commonly grown in gardens, indoor and out. The S. alba is the white flowered plant, (which I would really like to put in my yard.)
S. nicolai is the largest and reaches 10 meters in height (32 feet!) The flowers are blue and white. The specie S. caudata is actually a tree and grows to a shorter height than S. nicolai and has leaves similar looking to those of a banana tree. Other species are much smaller in height. The "flowers" are an inflorescence with a long spathe. This is where the pollen is contained. The plants are pollinated by sunbirds which perch upon the spathe. The weight of the bird causes it to open and the pollen then sticks on the bird's feet and is transferred to the next plant when it perches there. The "Bird" has no natural insect pollinators, so in areas with no sunbirds, the plants must be pollinated by hand. (There was a link to "sunbirds", so naturally, I had to hit it. Sunbirds are NOT native to our half of the world, but are distantly related to hummingbirds.)
In our half of the globe, "Birds" like to grow in USDA zones 9 - 12. They like bright light, but grow differently in full sun (more flowers and shorter stems) than in shaded areas (bigger flowers and taller stalks). They liked well drained soil with a high organic content. They need adequate water with the soil being kept moist throughout the summer. The plants grow in clumps which can become quite big over time, like the plant in my mom's backyard. They need to be pruned back and/or divided in the spring as well as "dead heading" and removing the dead leaves. There are articles and videos on-line on how to prune and divide the plants if you are interested.