Re: Clivia Advice Needed

**C* U* <c*@gmail.com>**

After I bought my first mail order clivia,  it started forming offsets  
fairly soon. The directions had said to remove offsets, but this  
became impossible since the plant just kept on producing them, so I  
eventually gave up. The plant bloomed fine. After a few years, it got  
potbound and I dumped it out of the pot to divide it and found I had  
eleven plants. I kept four for myself and gave the rest away.  Each of  
those four plants has now grown into a large plant with many offsets  
and all four have bloomed fine, with one plant producing at least 7  
flowering stalks one year.

My experience has been that it's really important to withhold water  
for 2 or 3 months during the winter. Then when you resume watering, it  
stimulates the plant to flower, usually in March. However, last year  
the plants didn't bloom until I moved them outdoors for the summer, so  
the timing has gotten out whack. It could be that they are now so  
potbound that I need to divide them, but if I do, I will probably end  
up with over 40 plants--assuming 10 plants per pot--and I don't know  
what to do with 40 plants besides compost them. Also, the pots are now  
so heavy that I find it difficult to move and carry them.

They need to be in total shade outdoors. I've learned from bitter  
experience that the leaves get sunburned very easily.

They really do thrive on neglect. In Harold Koopowitz's book on  
clivias, he tells of a woman who was arrested during the Boer War and  
sent off to prison. When the war was over and she was released after 2  
or 3 years, she came home and found that the clivia she had left on  
her front porch was blooming beautifully.

Carolyn Ulrich

On Dec 12, 2013, at 9:03 AM, <loisdan@juno.com> <loisdan@juno.com>  
wrote:

> Hi Everyone,
>
> My approx. 5-year old Golden Dragon Clivia has started to grow an  
> offset
> and I'm not sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. The  
> mother
> plant has 28 leaves (14 on each side) and barely fits into its  
> assigned
> corner, which is the only suitable location for it in our house. I  
> know
> the plant is pretty rootbound because my then-puppy knocked it over  
> about
> two years ago, breaking both its clay pot and the glazed clay cache  
> pot.
>
> Does the offset mean the mother plant is in distress (it looks very
> robust)?
> If I let the offset grow, will the mother plant not bloom (it starts
> blooming every Feb. 12th)?
> If I want to keep both, do I need to repot? The most I can do is to  
> pot
> it up directly into the cache pot to gain about 1/2-inch and a bit  
> more
> depth.
>
> This is the only Clivia I've ever grown and I was not aware how  
> ginormous
> they can become until I saw some in Longwood Garden's conservatory.  
> Can
> this plant be kept in an 8 1/2-inch pot indefinitely? Is root- 
> pruning an
> option?
>
> Thanks a bunch!
> Lois
>
> Lois J. de Vries
> Visit: http://cultivatingtheinnergardener.blogspot.com
> Visit: http://loisdevries.blogspot.com
> On Twitter: http://twitter.com/loisdevries
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>
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