Strelitzia, Growing Bird of Paradise Plants

The photo above is one of my indoor bird-of-paradise plants. This is now ready to harvest more seed again. Over the last number of years I have managed to harvest seed from my plants and grow more from this seed. In this lens I will attempt to give a few pointers to doing this successfully. I am living in Ireland, and our climate is northern temperate, which in short means we get frost and cold in winter and temperatures from -4 degrees centigrade in winter to the low 20's in summer. The Strelitzia are a tropical plant and don't grow naturally in these conditions.

Overwintering:
Stop feeding the plants to allow them to become dormant.
One of the main points with the exotic plants is to avoid frost.
Do not overwater in the dormant season/winter. Wet soil is cold soil.
Keep in a well lit area and/or use daylight lamps to ensure enough photosynthesis takes place.
Springtime:
Feed the plant well once growth starts again. Feed regularly throughout the growing season but do not over-feed otherwise your plants will just grow foliage and no flowers.
To fertilize strelitzia flowers use a drinking straw. Slide the open end of the straw down between the slits of the blue toungue of the flower. It will collect the white powdery pollen, this pollen then can be transferred to another flower by sticking the end of the straw over the sticky white point of the toungue, repeat the procedure with all the flowers. You will know you have been successful when the flower spikes start expanding with the seed heads forming. To do this successfully your plants must be different and un-related. Single plants that have been split generally don't fertilize successfully.

When your seed heads start to split remove the black seeds complete with the yellow/orange tufts. Scrape the tuft off the seed and scratch the outside, insert the seeds in warmed damp earth/compost, about 1 inch deep, put the pot/s in clear plastic bags and tie the tops to keep the moinsture in. Leave these in a warm dark place, beside the hot water tank is ideal as the area around the tank is usually close to 25 degrees centigrade, the ideal temperature for germination. Watch for seedling spikes any time from 4 to 24 weeks, move to a light bright area and remove the plastic bag, finally nuture your new plants.

here is a photo of my latest batch of plants, just 12 months old.

I photographed these last week....
a crown of banana-like leaves atop a palm tree trunk, combine with huge, uniquely beautiful flowers, and then what you have is the exotically named bird of paradise tree. Related to the bird of paradise flower (Strelitzia regina), this close cousin is a much larger plant forming huge clumps of stems to 30 feet in comparison to S. regina's 3 to 4 feet height.

The 6 - 8' leaves are grey-green and arranged in fans atop the trunks. Plants form clumps of several variably-sized trunks that may grow to 18' in width under optimal conditions. The infloresence (the paradisiacal bird-like flower structures) are composed of a dark blue bract, white sepals and bluish-purple "tongue". The entire "bird" can be as large as 7" high by 18" long and is typically held just above the point where the leaf fan emerges from the trunk. Flowers are followed by triangular seed capsules.