{"id":66,"date":"2007-11-26T05:12:11","date_gmt":"2007-11-26T13:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/garden\/?p=66"},"modified":"2015-11-24T07:33:25","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T15:33:25","slug":"yellow-clivia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/yellow-clivia\/","title":{"rendered":"Yellow Clivia"},"content":{"rendered":"

YELLOW CLIVIA
\n<\/font><\/font><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>The small plant nursery on top of my microwave oven has a new resident.\u00a0 The yellow clivia that I have coveted for years finally arrived last week.\u00a0 As befits its horticultural importance and stature as an object of desire, I have potted it up in a four-inch terra cotta pot made by a now-defunct English pottery maker.\u00a0 I found the pot on a dusty bottom shelf of an even dustier antique and what-not shop.\u00a0 The pot, which bears the maker’s name, does not qualify for antique status, but it does lend a certain amount of extra cache to the already cache-laden yellow clivia. \u00a0I don’t tell people that I got the pot for almost nothing.\u00a0 There are some things that casual visitors just don’t need to know.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 First of all, if you are going to associate with this kind of high end plant, you have to get the name right.\u00a0 It’s pronounced “kl-eye-vee-ya”\u009d in honor of an Englishwoman, Lady Charlotte Florentia Clive, wife of an early nineteenth century Duke of Northumberland.\u00a0 Clivia is native to South Africa, but the first plants to bloom in England did so in 1827 in a greenhouse at Syon House, residence of the Duke and Duchess.\u00a0 The plants had been discovered in South Africa only a few years earlier.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Clive’s clivia was a specimen of Clivia miniata, and it had orange flowers.\u00a0 The much rarer yellow-flowered form of C. miniata was not discovered until 1888, in the Natal region of South Africa.\u00a0 Like the original orange-flowered clivia, the yellow-flowered form became a “must have”\u009d for wealthy plant collectors.\u00a0 Clivia caught on during the Victorian period, becoming a fixture in conservatories and greenhouses.\u00a0 In the second half of the twentieth century breeders in the U.S., Asia and elsewhere concentrated on enlarging the number of forms and colors.\u00a0 It is relatively easy to produce hybrids, which also encourages amateurs to work with the plants. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Clivia are related to amaryllis, and you can see that relationship in the long, strappy leaves that are typical of both genera.\u00a0 Both have tall stalks, with clivia growing between eighteen to twenty-four inches tall.\u00a0 Instead of the single large trumpet-shaped flowers that appear on amaryllis, clivia have large, somewhat rounded flowerheads composed of groups of multiple smaller trumpets.\u00a0 Clivia miniata has become the most popular clivia because it is the only one of the five clivia species with upward-facing flowers.\u00a0 Orange is the dominant flower color, but breeders have developed yellow and peach strains as well as varieties with variegated leaves.\u00a0 Like amaryllis, clivia is a tender plant, and must be brought inside in areas where winter temperatures fall below freezing.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yellow clivias are my favorite and I have wanted one for the longest time.\u00a0 Twenty years ago, they were only available at rare plant auctions.\u00a0 Then, fifteen years ago, a well-known catalog vendor offered a yellow-flowered specimen, Sir John Thouron, for nearly one thousand dollars.\u00a0 At the time I could only gaze longingly at the catalog pictures and fantasize.\u00a0 Today, that same catalog sells a similar cultivar, Golden Dragon, for a mere seventy-five.\u00a0 Another nursery sells a smaller specimen for fifty, or a very small Golden Dragon in a two and a half inch pot for just twenty.\u00a0 Even though the twenty dollar plant is a few years from blooming size, I couldn’t resist.\u00a0 The foliage is attractive even now and the long wait will make me especially grateful when the flowers finally do appear. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You would think a plant that was a rarity so recently would be fussy, but that isn’t the case.\u00a0 The yellow-flowered form, like its more common orange relatives, is reasonably undemanding.\u00a0 My clivia will eventually go in a south-facing window, but that is only because indoor light is much less bright than outdoor light.\u00a0 Any clivia that spends its summers outdoors should be placed in the shade, which is how it grows in South Africa.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Those of us who are lazy about repotting things will appreciate the fact that clivia like to be pot-bound, and will flower better and sooner under those cozy conditions.\u00a0 In a month or two my yellow clivia will graduate to a slightly larger pot.\u00a0 I will water it only when the top of the soil is dry and feed it periodically.\u00a0 When it finally flowers, it should do so in late winter or early spring.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are numerous yellow hybrids and cultivars, but they can be hard to find in the marketplace.\u00a0 For an excellent overall selection, go to Shields Gardens, Ltd., <\/font><\/font>www.shieldsgardens.com<\/font><\/a>.\u00a0 There is no paper catalog, but you can place orders over the telephone.\u00a0 Find a blooming-size, Salamone hybrid plant at Wayside<\/font> Gardens,| 1 Garden Lane,| Hodges, SC 29695, (800) 213-0379, <\/font>www.waysidegardens.com<\/a>.\u00a0 Free catalog.\u00a0 Golden Dragon is available in two sizes from <\/font>Logee’s Greenhouses, Ltd., 141 North Street,\u00a0Danielson, CT 06239, (888) 330-8038, <\/font>www.logees.com<\/font><\/a>.\u00a0 Free catalog<\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

YELLOW CLIVIA \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The small plant nursery on top of my microwave oven has a new resident.\u00a0 The yellow clivia that I have coveted for years finally arrived last week.\u00a0 As befits its horticultural importance and stature as an object of desire, I have potted it up in a four-inch terra cotta pot made by … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-interest","category-winter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1712,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions\/1712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}