Strelitzia, Bird of Paradise, Crane Flower 'Mandela's Gold'

I've been growing this particular Strelitzia Reginae (also known as Kirstenbosch Gold) for many years. When we first purchased it, we le...Read Morearned that although the nursery's stock was actually grown from seed from Africa, that only about 50% of the plants were showing the yellow and blue coloration. With this in mind, we only purchased blooming plants and all specimens we have are the correct coloration. If one checks the PlantZAfrica link in the comment above and reads the comments regarding this plant, one will learn that seed is scarce and that there is a waiting list. I've seen online sellers selling plants (not mentioning that they are from seed) and then learned that they were from seed obtained from a seller in the U.S. Caveat: please only buy from sellers that have actually verified that the bloom is correct or from sellers that sell divisions.

I have most of my 9 plants in full sun in Southern Califonria and they seem to do great! This year I did serious trimming; cutting out al...Read Morel the very tall leaves and the ones that did not look 100% healthy and even some roots that were not deep enough. In response to this drastic measure, I now have, on average, 20-30 flowers per plant! Electrifying at dusk!

I find that humming birds love them; every day each of the plants is visited by a couple of them. They seem to polinate them as well since we seem to get seeds without artificial polination. In Southern CA, this plant is very easy to grow. :o)

Requires artificial pollination to set seed, yellow to yellow breeds true, yellow to orange does not. Treat seeds with etherel before sow...Read Moreing. See http://www.plantzafrica.com for more information.