For those who’re rising lovely hen of paradise vegetation in your backyard, it’s solely pure that you simply’d need extra of them.
Positive, you possibly can exit and buy further Strelitzia specimens as a substitute of utilizing propagation methods to extend your inventory.
However vegetation aren’t low cost, and there’s one thing cool about proudly owning one that you simply your self have raised since its birthday. Or origin day, or no matter you’d name a plant’s first day in a panorama.
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There are a lot of different advantages to propagation in addition to simply saving cash.
the place your new vegetation got here from, you don’t should depend on transport or driving out someplace for pickup, and you’ve got the privilege of carrying out what’s arguably botanical wizardry. Plus, it’s enjoyable!
For those who’d like a refresher about cultivating Strelitzia, learn our information to rising hen of paradise vegetation.
On this information, we have now a few propagation methods to share. From the supplies you’ll have to the step-by-step how-to’s, right here’s what we’ll cowl:
Propagating Birds of Paradise
Sowing Seeds
Whereas it’s attainable to develop hen of paradise from seed, first some phrases of warning: Strelitzia species began from seed often take three to 5 years to start out blooming, with agonizingly gradual instances taking as much as a decade.
But when persistence is your advantage, then seed sowing is a enjoyable propagation challenge.
You should purchase seeds or harvest them your self, whether or not they’re from different folks’s gardens or your individual.
But it surely’s necessary to know that seeds collected from hybrid vegetation gained’t develop true to sort, which means that you can find yourself with a special hen of paradise selection than you anticipated.
Due to this fact, buying seed from respected distributors will guarantee you understand for sure what sort you’ll find yourself with.
Like this pack of 15 Strelitzia reginae seeds, which is obtainable by Outsidepride through Amazon.
Strelitzia Reginae Seeds
One other technique is to pollinate your Strelitzia specimens your self, by hand. This may be useful to hurry the pollination course of alongside.
Strelitzia flowers are typically pollinated by birds – sunbirds or Cape weavers of their native vary in South Africa.
For those who check out the hen of paradise blooms, every flower consists of three orange or white sepals that encompass one skinny, blue to indigo floral construction.
This construction is tipped with a pollen-receptive stigma, with pollen-producing stamens lined by a sheath additional up on the flower.
When birds land on this construction, their touchdown pushes apart the sheaths and uncovers the stamens. Uncovered pollen sticks to the birds’ toes, bellies, and breasts as they feed on nectar.
When the hen strikes to a different flower, it brings alongside the pollen and transfers it to the stigma when it lands, leading to pollination and eventual seed set.
To pollinate your vegetation with out birds, you’ll want a cotton swab or a small paint brush.
Pushing the stamen-stigma construction down, use your selection of device to gather pollen. Take that pollen to a different plant, and gently brush it onto a number of of their stigmas.
After 5 months, the blooms ought to have given method to seed pods, every containing 60 to 80 black, orange-tufted, pea-sized seeds.
Go away these pods to show brown and dry on the vegetation earlier than utilizing a pointy, sterile blade to chop the pods off the vegetation and harvest the seeds inside.
If the seeds are tender, you need to sow them immediately. For those who can’t sow proper after harvest or in any other case wish to wait till spring, you need to allow them to dry out in a ventilated room at 40 to 50°F earlier than conserving them in an envelope saved at equally cool and dry situations.
If the seed coats are exhausting or have hardened come planting time, you need to soak the seeds for twenty-four hours in lukewarm water earlier than nicking them with a blade or file to frivolously scarify the seeds. Take away the orange hair tufts after soaking, and also you’re able to sow!
Both indoors or in a greenhouse, collect particular person three-inch pots or trays and fill them with a 50:50 mixture of peat moss and perlite.
Bury one or two seeds per pot or cell half an inch to an inch deep, moisten the media, and canopy them with a humidity dome or sheet of plastic wrap, relying in your selection of container.
Temperatures of between 75 and 90°F are required for germination – utilizing backside warmth mats to lift the temperature could also be obligatory. Seedlings ought to pop up after six to 12 weeks, at which level you possibly can take away the plastic coverings.
Present your seedlings with brilliant, oblique gentle, and hold the media moist because the child vegetation develop.
As soon as the seedlings have two to 4 true leaves, you possibly can transfer them into their very own six-inch pots, and proceed to offer constant soil moisture. Preserve them in the identical brilliant, oblique gentle location till the seedlings are six to eight inches tall.
At this level, you possibly can repot your plantings, or transplant your Strelitzia out into the backyard in Zones 9 to 12.
The best spot in your hen of paradise would have full solar to partial shade publicity, not less than six toes of elbow room per plant, and organically wealthy, loamy soil with a pH of 5.5 to 7.5.
Dividing Vegetation
When you have massive, unruly clumps of Strelitzia, you possibly can divide them into a number of smaller sections for transplanting all through your backyard. Perhaps you can provide one or two of them away as presents!
One of the best time for dividing a hen of paradise is in late spring to early summer time. Mature specimens with greater than 4 or 5 shoots are the proper candidates.
With a pointy shovel or spade, begin digging a circle eight to 12 inches out out of your clump.
Dig 10 to 24 inches deep, relying on the dimensions of the plant, and use your digging device as a lever to raise your hen of paradise out of the bottom.
These rising in containers can merely be lifted out of the pot after utilizing a hand device to loosen the soil up a bit.
With a pointy knife, minimize by means of the basis ball of your dug-up plant, separating the clump into a number of sections, every with roots and not less than one stem connected.
Replant the divisions into new spots within the backyard by digging holes massive sufficient to accommodate the roots. Preserve the soil across the roots moist for not less than three months, then care in your divisions such as you would a mature, established hen of paradise.
Flowering ought to begin in a single to a few years – divided and replanted specimens often don’t flower their first yr again within the floor.
You may also take away younger offshoots from mature vegetation whereas they’re nonetheless within the floor. That technique is roofed in our information to dividing hen of paradise vegetation.
However What About Cuttings?
Taking stem or leaf cuttings is a well-liked propagation technique for a lot of completely different vegetation. Sadly, it gained’t work with Strelitzia species.
Fowl of paradise stems aren’t in a position to produce roots, so that they gained’t set up except there’s intact root tissue or rhizome connected.
Be part of the Propagation Nation
Propagating favourite vegetation within the backyard is a enjoyable challenge and may prevent cash.
Beginning birds of paradise from seed requires a little bit of persistence, however dividing current vegetation or eradicating offshoots is a fast and straightforward method to hold your backyard stocked with these lovely flowers.
Are you rising hen of paradise? Have you ever tried propagating the vegetation? Tell us within the feedback part beneath!
And for extra details about rising birds of paradise in your panorama, have a learn of those guides subsequent: