Re: Island Jim's clivia in FULL bloom link

hi, ceres. the short answer to your questions are "i don't know." this is the first time i've owned a clivia and the first time it has bloomed. i didn't even know it was yellow until it bloomed. i think it has set at least one seed [pod?]. i intend to leave any that do set on the plant until they are ripe. then i'll decide what i'm going to do next.

for those comparing cultural notes, mine [as i wrote earlier] is in a pot on the front patio where it has been for at least a year. for at least a year before that, it was in my lathhouse. i have never fertilized it, but i think i'm going to now with the monsoon season coming. probably a handful of high-nitrogen slow-release stuff [osmacote or similar].

where it is now is constant shade [it was in constant shade in the lathhouse, too, of course]. the pot is at the base of an orange jasmine that i have pruned [butchered, some might suggest] into a small, multi-stem patio tree. right now [5:50 p.m.] the wayward sun has set enough to throw a few rays under the jasmine, but only strike the leaves of the clivia and not to bloom stalk. but the sun is passing quickly out of that window, also. [6:15 p.m. and it's back in total shade.]

it is planted in the porous soil-less potting mix we use at the nursery and irrigated nightly all year. winter is our dry season. so irrigation in winter, i would guess, is sucked up by the immediate atmosphere and the potting mixture remains relatively dry.

this is an aside. i think of "dry" growing conditions [as different from "wet" growing conditions] as a medium that has lots of air between and among the particulates. i don't think how much water one can wring out of a fistful of the stuff matters very much. this is why inert and/or slowly decomposing additives are important to potting [and rooting] mixes--bark, perlite, vermiculite. they provide air.

At 10:50 PM 3/23/03 -0500, you wrote:
Jim, when do you retrive the seed?  Do you normally allow the seed head to
remain on your plant?  I have.  Could this be the reason it is not consist
with bloom period?  I have one red seed on the plant or is there more than
one seed per globe?  What is your seeding process?  If I have an orange will
it always be an orange from the seed?
    Ceres

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