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How to To Propagate Bird of Paradise Plants | Gardener’s Path
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If you’re growing beautiful bird of paradise plants in your garden, it’s only natural that you’d want more of them.
Sure, you can go out and purchase additional Strelitzia specimens instead of using propagation techniques to increase your stock.
But plants aren’t cheap, and there’s something cool about owning one that you yourself have raised since its birthday. Or origin day, or whatever you’d call a plant’s first day in a landscape.
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There are many other benefits to propagation besides just saving money.
You know where your new plants came from, you don’t have to rely on shipping or driving out somewhere for pickup, and you have the privilege of accomplishing what is arguably botanical wizardry. Plus, it’s fun!
If you’d like a refresher about cultivating Strelitzia, read our guide to growing bird of paradise plants.
In this guide, we have a couple of propagation techniques to share. From the materials you’ll need to the step-by-step how-to’s, here’s what we’ll cover:
Propagating Birds of Paradise
Sowing Seeds
While it is possible to grow bird of paradise from seed, first some words of warning: Strelitzia species started from seed usually take three to five years to start blooming, with agonizingly slow cases taking up to a decade.
But if patience is your virtue, then seed sowing is a fun propagation project.
You can purchase seeds or harvest them yourself, whether they’re from other people’s gardens or your own.
But it’s important to know that seeds collected from hybrid plants won’t grow true to type, meaning that you could end up with a different bird of paradise variety than you expected.
Therefore, purchasing seed from reputable vendors will ensure you know for certain what kind you’ll end up with.
Like this pack of 15 Strelitzia reginae seeds, which is offered by Outsidepride via Amazon.
Another method is to pollinate your Strelitzia specimens yourself, by hand. This can be helpful to speed the pollination process along.
Strelitzia flowers are generally pollinated by birds – sunbirds or Cape weavers in their native range in South Africa.
If you take a look at the bird of paradise blooms, each flower consists of three orange or white sepals that surround one thin, blue to indigo floral structure.
This structure is tipped with a pollen-receptive stigma, with pollen-producing stamens covered by a sheath further up on the flower.
When birds land on this structure, their landing pushes aside the sheaths and uncovers the stamens. Exposed pollen sticks to the birds’ feet, bellies, and breasts as they feed on nectar.
When the bird moves to another flower, it brings along the pollen and transfers it to the stigma when it lands, resulting in pollination and eventual seed set.
To pollinate your plants without birds, you’ll need a cotton swab or a small paint brush.
Pushing the stamen-stigma structure down, use your choice of tool to collect pollen. Take that pollen to another plant, and gently brush it onto one or more of their stigmas.
After five months, the blooms should have given way to seed pods, each containing 60 to 80 black, orange-tufted, pea-sized seeds.
Leave these pods to turn brown and dry on the plants before using a sharp, sterile blade to cut the pods off the plants and harvest the seeds within.
If the seeds are soft, you should sow them right away. If you can’t sow right after harvest or otherwise want to wait until spring, you should let them dry out in a ventilated room at 40 to 50°F before keeping them in an envelope kept at similarly cool and dry conditions.
If the seed coats are hard or have hardened come planting time, you should soak the seeds for 24 hours in lukewarm water before nicking them with a blade or file to lightly scarify the seeds. Remove the orange hair tufts after soaking, and you’re ready to sow!
Either indoors or in a greenhouse, gather individual three-inch pots or trays and fill them with a 50:50 mix of peat moss and perlite.
Bury one or two seeds per pot or cell half an inch to an inch deep, moisten the media, and cover them with a humidity dome or sheet of plastic wrap, depending on your choice of container.
Temperatures of between 75 and 90°F are required for germination – using bottom heat mats to raise the temperature may be necessary. Seedlings should pop up after six to 12 weeks, at which point you can remove the plastic coverings.
Provide your seedlings with bright, indirect light, and keep the media moist as the baby plants grow.
Once the seedlings have two to four true leaves, you can move them into their own six-inch pots, and continue to provide consistent soil moisture. Keep them in the same bright, indirect light location until the seedlings are six to eight inches tall.
At this point, you can repot your plantings, or transplant your Strelitzia out into the garden in Zones 9 to 12.
The ideal spot for your bird of paradise would have full sun to partial shade exposure, at least six feet of elbow room per plant, and organically rich, loamy soil with a pH of 5.5 to 7.5.
Dividing Plants
If you have large, unruly clumps of Strelitzia, you can divide them into multiple smaller sections for transplanting throughout your garden. Maybe you can give one or two of them away as gifts!
The best time for dividing a bird of paradise is in late spring to early summer. Mature specimens with more than four or five shoots are the perfect candidates.
With a sharp shovel or spade, start digging a circle eight to 12 inches out from your clump.
Dig 10 to 24 inches deep, depending on the size of the plant, and use your digging tool as a lever to lift your bird of paradise out of the ground.
Those growing in containers can simply be lifted out of the pot after using a hand tool to loosen the soil up a bit.
With a sharp knife, cut through the root ball of your dug-up plant, separating the clump into multiple sections, each with roots and at least one stem attached.
Replant the divisions into new spots in the garden by digging holes large enough to accommodate the roots. Keep the soil around the roots moist for at least three months, then care for your divisions like you would a mature, established bird of paradise.
Flowering should start in one to three years – divided and replanted specimens usually don’t flower their first year back in the ground.
You can also remove young offshoots from mature plants while they are still in the ground. That method is covered in our guide to dividing bird of paradise plants.
But What About Cuttings?
Taking stem or leaf cuttings is a popular propagation method for many different plants. Unfortunately, it won’t work with Strelitzia species.
Bird of paradise stems aren’t able to produce roots, so they won’t establish unless there is intact root tissue or rhizome attached.
Join the Propagation Nation
Propagating favorite plants in the garden is a fun project and can save you money.
Starting birds of paradise from seed requires a bit of patience, but dividing existing plants or removing offshoots is a quick and easy way to keep your garden stocked with these beautiful flowers.
Are you growing bird of paradise? Have you tried propagating the plants? Let us know in the comments section below!
And for more information about growing birds of paradise in your landscape, have a read of these guides next:
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Joe Butler
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