Bird of Paradise

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My ‘Bird of Paradise’ has just started to open its very first ever flower today! I’ve been growing this in our kitchen for about 5 years. It came from some seeds my son brought me back from a holiday in Spain. There were only 3 or 4 seeds in the packet but only 2 germinated. One of those died a few weeks later. So this one has had to endure life with me all this time.

Bird of Paradise just repotted

I repotted it in a big pot this year, in the spring, & even put it outside on the balcony for a couple of months. I had to bring it in again as the leaves being so big took up far too much space & I found it difficult getting around it.

When I sowed the seeds I knew they would take a long time to flower, if ever, so I thought of it more as a foliage plant than a flowering plant. So I was surprised a couple of months ago when I noticed a l-o-n-g, what I thought was a leaf growing. As it began to curve sideways I hardly dared to hope it might be a flower stem!

1st bud 16th November 2023

It’s developed much quicker than I thought it would; I didn’t expect it to open till well into January at the earliest!

Well it’s opened today – an early Christmas present!

This is a very close up macro shot

The whole plant

• 1 Dec, 2023
• 8 likes

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