Clivia caulescens

[Heinie]

I am not sure if there is any interest in Clivias here but I post a Clivia caulescens flowering now. The first 2 photos are from the current flowers.





The next photo was taken in July when it also flowered.

[Maggi Young]

My goodness, lok at the shine on those flowers! Very smart.... you have a sure way with these plants, Heinie!

[Gail]

Lots of interest I would think Heinie - that's gorgeous!

[Heinie]

Thank you for the kind comments ladies.

[David Nicholson]

I hope Jim Sheilds picks up this thread. Lovely.

[Heinie]

David,

Thank you. I call this my habitat Clivia because it is too tall for the shade house. It grows in a pot but it rests against a tree so it does not fall over. Here are more photos of the "habitat" and look at the roots growing out the stem above the pot. Pardon all the photos but you may find it interesting.

I am thinking of splitting the plant in three parts to get it down to a manageable height again. The 1st part will be the top section of the plant with some roots intact. The 2nd part will be the part from growing medium level down and the 3rd part the stump from the middle with roots as an experiment to see if it will grow offsets from the stump. I succeeded with a similar experiment before so wish me luck.

[Maggi Young]

Oh dear, that sounds a very risky strategy to me..... but I wish you luck if you are brave enough to try it 

[jshields]

Heinie,  good luck!  My caulescens in the greenhouse do not root very well when cut off that way.  For those who have not seen them crawling over the rocks at God's Window in South Africa, they might be surprised at how they sprawl as their stems or trunks get longer.

Right now we have a couple Clivia robusta "MAxima" in bloom inside the greenhouse, but the shade covering has their flowers looking very pale.

[PeterT]

Heinie, your Caulsscens is wonderfull! I was given a few Clivias some years ago, would this be C robusta? apologies for the poor picture.

[jshields]

Have you heard that they are talking about lumping caulescens, nobilis, gardenii, robusta, and maybe even mirabilis into one species?  Then there would be only two species of Clivia: miniata, and the other, presumably named nobilis.  That ought to start a brawl!  Since the species can still be distinguished by chromosome bands as well as by geographic range, I think we should keep them all.  On the other hand, as they get more extensive DNA sequences for all of these populations, the statistics may make it hard to keep them separately named.

[Ezeiza]

Heinie, great plants as always. Is this one of Christiaan's plants?

I would like to know which medium you grow them in. And, do you grow all your Clivias in it?

[Heinie]

Jim,
Yes, we heard about the DNA tests done by Prof Johan Spies and his team when he gave a talk at the Conference last September. I fins it hard to swallow but let's wait on the final outcome.

Ezeiza,
I am not sure who Christiaan is but I received an offset from a friend a few years ago of this red one. I grow my Clivias in 12mm composted pine bark with 25% compost added. Here is a photo of the bark size.



This one is with seedlings of about 3 months old in the same bark. The seeds were germinated in this bark so they have not been transplanted yet. They will remain there for 15 to18 months in this deep tray with small holes on all the sides and bottom of the tray like in the second photo.

[JoshY46013]

Beautiful plant!   

I really like your potting medium, I use a medium very similar for many of my bulbous species, I add a few larger chunks of bark in as well!  Do you grow other plants in this mix?

[Heinie]

Josh,

I grow mostly only the Clivias in the bark but add some of this bark to the medium of my larger bulbs i.e. Crinum, Brunsvigia, Boophone etc. I never discard any of my growing medium because my soil at home is a heavy clay therefore I have to collect sand and grit from a river bed.