Strelitzia - Birds of paradise
 

Are these ok to grow outside? Or do they need to be put
indoors/greenhouse in the winter?

Just bought 2 of them (coming in a few weeks), and in 11cms pots now.

Any help would be great.

Strelitzia - Birds of paradise
 

"htmark98" wrote in message
oups.com...
Are these ok to grow outside? Or do they need to be put
indoors/greenhouse in the winter?

Just bought 2 of them (coming in a few weeks), and in 11cms pots now.

Any help would be great.


Strictly indoor plants during winter with a min of about 50F. During summer
it should be OK outside until the nights draw in.
You may get regret from a frosted plant but I would not bet on it.

Strelitzia - Birds of paradise
 

htmark98 wrote:
Are these ok to grow outside? Or do they need to be put
indoors/greenhouse in the winter?

Just bought 2 of them (coming in a few weeks), and in 11cms pots now.

Any help would be great.

Gosh! Don't even think about growing these outdoors, even in summer, I'd
say: over winter they'll want an even temp of 10C.

--
Mike.

Strelitzia - Birds of paradise
 

"Rupert" wrote in message
...

"htmark98" wrote in message
oups.com...
Are these ok to grow outside? Or do they need to be put
indoors/greenhouse in the winter?

Just bought 2 of them (coming in a few weeks), and in 11cms pots now.

Any help would be great.


Strictly indoor plants during winter with a min of about 50F. During
summer it should be OK outside until the nights draw in.
You may get regret from a frosted plant but I would not bet on it.
Regret?? and how ---but I meant re growth

Strelitzia - Birds of paradise
 

In article , Rupert wrote:
"htmark98" wrote in message
roups.com...

Are these ok to grow outside? Or do they need to be put
indoors/greenhouse in the winter?

Just bought 2 of them (coming in a few weeks), and in 11cms pots now.

Any help would be great.

Strictly indoor plants during winter with a min of about 50F. During summer
it should be OK outside until the nights draw in.

Er, not quite. David Poole's reply is the best one, as usual!

In the south, they grow happily outside in a sunny spot, and appreciate
fairly regular soaking and fertilising. Otherwise, just keep them from
extreme wind. Virtually no attention needed.

In the winter, they just need to be comfortably above freezing, dryish
but not dessicated, and in a light, airy place. They usually flower
then. They can handle 25 Celcius even in the winter, though I don't
know how well they could take it continually.

But do not worry about a slight cold snap in autumn, provided that it
is mild and brief. They are FAR tougher than most people realise.
What is critical is that they don't actually freeze, but I have had
rime on leaves and flower buds without damage. And, in Africa, that
is commonplace.

Watch out for red spider mite and mealybug.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Strelitzia - Birds of paradise
 

In article ,
Nick Maclaren wrote:

In the south, they grow happily outside in a sunny spot, and appreciate
fairly regular soaking and fertilising. Otherwise, just keep them from
extreme wind. Virtually no attention needed.

In the south IN THE SUMMER, ....


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Strelitzia - Birds of paradise
 

In article ,
Janet Baraclough writes:
| The message
| from (Nick Maclaren) contains these words:
|
| They can handle 25 Celcius even in the winter,
|
| ? Few Brits heat their houses to 25C in winter. But you seemed to be
| talking about outdoor strelitzia, who won't encounter that in a UK
| winter :-)

I meant outdoor in summer and indoor in winter! I didn't MEAN
to imply that they can survive the winter outside anywhere,
except possibly in Torquay.

Also, quite a lot of people do heat to that temperature, when
they are in the room. The point is that it won't kill them,
which is not true of all indoor/outdoor plants.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Strelitzia - Birds of paradise
 

Mine survive outdoors happily all through the year ;-), however I
wouldn't suggest that anyone in the UK rely on that, even in the warmer
areas. Here in Southern Spain it's a different matter :-), in fact I've
one just comimg out now. You don't say how old the plants are, but they
do take about 6 or 7 years to flower from seed, so it maybe a year or
two before you get flowers so don't despair.

Mike

Strelitzia - Birds of paradise
 

Thanks Everyone

I live in South Wales.

Strelitzia - Birds of paradise
 

In article ,
jane wrote:
~
~In the winter, they just need to be comfortably above freezing, dryish
~but not dessicated, and in a light, airy place. They usually flower
~then. They can handle 25 Celcius even in the winter, though I don't
~know how well they could take it continually.

Pretty well. They grow outside in Hawaii, which has a pretty constant
temperature.
"In downtown Honolulu the warmest month is August, with an average
temperature of about 78° F the coldest, February, around 72° F The
range between the coldest and warmest months averages only 6° F."
(That's 22-25.5C)

No, that's not the point. The problem about the UK winter is the
dark; the combination of high temperatures and low light levels
causes trouble to a great many sub-tropicals.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Strelitzia - Birds of paradise
 

On Wed, 15 Mar 2006 09:12:39 +0000 (UTC), jane
wrote:

I keep the conserv. at 13C +-2C at this time of year, thanks to a
digital thermostatic plug I was told about recently (it's much better
than trusting the heater's inbuilt thermostat which used to keep the
room between 8C and 20C! )

More info please. Do you know an online supplier? Can you post a link?



--
Chris

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net

Strelitzia - Birds of paradise
 

On Thu, 16 Mar 2006 08:25:47 +0000 (UTC), jane
wrote:
http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Ind...Index/Therm_1/

They're all over the SE and have delivery areas too, if you don't want
to track one down. I drove to Slough as their area only went as far as
Amersham and I'm a couple of miles further on...

The trick is to set it to what you want (bearing in mind it's sensing
the temperature at the level of the socket which in my case is
floor-level!) and see what reading an independent max/min thermometer
gives you at the level of your plants. Then tweak the setting as
necessary.

It also means you can set your electric heater to full blast on, at
full thermostat, and so when you need extra heat eg when you just
opened the door from the outside, it reheats the room very quickly and
then is switched off by the plug. I suspect it's less of a fire risk
than one that's on all the time and being badly controlled by its own
analogue thermostat.


jane

Many thanks for that. I'm not happy with the built-in thermostat on my
g/h heater even after 'modification', and potentially this looks a
great improvement.


--
Chris

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net

Strelitzia - Birds of paradise
 

jane writes

Just put a tiny parasene paraffin heater in the mini greenhouse, too.
That's obviously not got a thermostat on, but seems to keep the temp
to about 8C in there as against the zero it is outside.

That sounds impressive. Is this 8 deg C during the day, or do you mean
it doesn't drop below 8 deg even during the night?

How much does that cost to run?

I have off-peak electric heating in the greenhouse, which is double
glazed and has additional bubble wrap in the winter. I keep it at a
night time min of 40deg F as a compromise between what I'd really like
and size of electricity bill.
--
Kay