Kaffir Lily - Clivia Miniata

Wow well I cast my eyes on one of these beauties last week - it was my project for the next few weeks to try and find a nice one. Well I found one straight away.

I'm just curious since I have no idea what to do with it really...I know it recommends re-potting every 2-3years. I looked at the bottom of mine and you can see the roots inside curling around the bottom of the pot at least twice and there are a few coming out. Does it need repotting or will it be ok for another year?

I thought I'd also say that these plants are also called Bush Lilies if anyone knows about them since I've not had a response yet.

Dipsey,

Clivia is not widely grown - as houseplant. I use it as a landscape plant here in Florida and it is a trouble free plant.

The only advice I can give you is that it blooms best when pot bound. I am guessing that you don't need to worry about re-potting it until is stops growing new leaves. When you do get around to re-potting you will have to remove some of the root mass. I have friends that have kept houseplants in the same size container for years, but, I don't really know their technique. I don't have any houseplants - too much work for a lazy gardener.

I have the pale yellow, it grows faster and gets larger than the orange types, blooms better too. It looks almost white in this photo>

Thank you for replying. I think it's a bit cold here for them to grow outdoors so they are houseplants here.

Your pale yellow one looks lovely; I did get the orange one purely because it was the option of orange or nothing. I think I may have to try and locate someone that sells the yellow ones as well since they are so nice.

I agree, you are in too cold a climate to use Clivia as a landscape plant, but, yours could summer over outside in a shady spot.

My yellow has never made a seed, the orange ones set fertile seed quite often. I was thinking of trying to cross the two, but, so far they have not bloomed at the same time. I am still hoping that someday they will have flowers open at the same time.

Oh a cross one would be interesting to see. I can get the yellow ones on e-bay but I wouldn't trust the postal service to deliver it in once piece. I'll definately keep my eyes open.

I might put it outside over summer for a bit but I wouldn't like to leave it out all day and all night. Our neighbours have cats, and there is a family of mice or something close by - if I did leave them out I bet one of them would have a bite of it :(.

They really are nice plants; I wonder why it took me so long to find one - they don't seem to very common or popular here.

One factor that leads to their unpopular status is the short bloom cycle. And they are slow growing , it takes many years for them to reach flowering size - 5 years on average. Growing a plant for 5 years, in a greenhouse in the UK. would make them worth about $100 USD and that would be a hard sell.

I only have two photos of Clivia - how about some verbena to brighten up the page?

I think it looks nice without the flower head so the short blooming time won't bother me at all.

I don't understand how the plants are so expensive. I read on a site that it said they sell for 10's of thousands of dollars in China. I paid £11 for mine (almost $16).

Even the seeds for the plant (which I originally looked for) were a lot - they were around the same price I paid for the plant.

The clivia that you have read about - the ones selling for big bucks - are rare genetic mutants. Regular clivia sell for $2 in China.

Here in the US we get starter plants from India by the tens of thousands. The big growers pot them up, keep them for a year or two. Then they sell them for $17.

Seed prices on sites like EBay are over the top. If you are looking for good value EBay is not the place to look.

There are places in S Africa that sell seeds, hybrid seeds for $3-5 each, regular clivia cost less. I have done business with http://www.africanbulbs.com/ and they have reasonable prices.

Linaria is blooming now>

I received a couple of little babies of C. miniata in trade a year or so ago and another large plant in another trade ... couldn't keep them alive for some reason! Maybe I should have tried planting them in the yard, but they would have to be dug up before winter because I don't think they'd survive here, especially in winters like the one that just passed! We had the coldest temp's we've had in a very long time. We had two freezes and a few nights around 25º.

They are gorgeous plants: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/2201/

Dale, your photo's are always so Awesome!

Lin,

You can grow them in the ground, they will take a freeze. If you are worried you can cover them with a blanket on really bad nights.

English Daisy>

Thanks for the site Dale. How did you get on with the seeds? I did read that the seeds can be hard to germinate?

I have looked at a few sites in South Africa which sell the seeds quite cheap but I think the postage was too expensive or you needed to buy a lot of them.

Plantladylin we also had quite bad winters here - I think we had the coldest one for over 40 years - I'm in the North and it's normally us that suffer worst but this year it was the South where they grow a few tropical plants and the snow killed most of them!

Dipsy,

The Clivia seeds are very easy. Nothing hard about them.

Today you could smell the orange trees all over town>

Ha I like the fact you always post a different picture at the end - it's very nice.

Most of our trees still don't have leaves - Some of them have tiny buds - there are a couple in blossom but nothing like your orange trees. I work opposite a large nature reserve and all of those trees have nothing on them yet!

I tried the site you mentioned and I couldn't get on it all day yesterday I'll keep trying again today :)

I just checked the bulb site and it is working(for me). I requested their online catalog and got it the same day - that was yesterday. They will have Clivia seed available starting in July. They didn't have a price in the catalog.

It is full blown summer here>

I went on their site earlier and it worked. I have also requested their catalogue. There must just have been errors for me yesterday.

I am impressed with your sunflowers. We don't get them until June-July-August- September maybe. Everything is still wrapped up warm for winter. Today and yesterday have been the warmest days of the year so far - we've had dim sun for 2 days. It's the longest warm sun we've had all year. Although I'm at work and we have the air con on so it's like antartica inside so I'm not getting any benefit of the sun outside :(

Hi;

I'm just wondering once this plant has finished flowering do I just cut the flowering stalk off or do I have to do something else to it?

I've heard that they'll set berries if you leave the spike alone after flowering - not edible, of course, but still pretty.