Whether you grow them in beds or pots, clivias are among the most versatile, hardy and beautiful plants you can include in your landscape.
Given the right position they’ll reward you with luxuriant foliage and blooms with a minimum of care.
The standard colour is salmon but they also come in near white, buttery yellow and flame orange. Leaves are emerald green, varying from long and narrow to very broad.
Clivia miniata, the most often seen species, flowers in late winter but C. nobilis and C. caulescens can bloom a couple of times a year.
Variegated forms are available but are costly and often unstable, reverting to plain green as the plant matures.
Clivias are showy but surprisingly low maintenance and are easy to grow from seed or propagate by division.
Over time clivias naturally form an ever-expanding clump in beds, while in pots they can become too crowded to perform well.
After spring flowering, a large garden clump or root-bound container plant can be divided for lots more clivias that can be potted up.
Most clivias set a large number of seeds every year. These take a year to ripen so it’s not unusual to see a plant flowering while holding a ripe seed-head from the previous season.
Check out the video from garden guru Adam Woodhams to find out how to divide clivias and grow them from seed.