Strelitzia in my greenhouse~really large flower!

Stunning :o)

Thanks TT! not so many flowers~another two I think~ but really big ones

its gorgeous Arlene

~lots of wow factor Eileen!

def loads of wow factor Arlene - Strelitzia is in my top 10 favs - well done in growing this in Wales - you either have a fab greenhouse or as I suspect you have very very very green fingers

~maybe just lucky!It hasn't been out of the greenhouse which maybe gives the heat it needs to flower~it is really hot in there but am thinking of moving it out for a couple of weeks to get a good soaking and then back in for the winter.Will be waiting until it finishes flowering though!.
When we were in Capetown there were girls at the side of the road selling cut ones for about 50p.

Its lovely Arlene...I have seen these for sale in Wilko's but the lable has put me off saying it need honey sucking birds to pollinate it........

~ity's not so much that Milky as it needs to be six or seven years old to get to flowering size and I bought mine when it had one flower so I knew it should be okay.
Got it from Burncoose in Cornwall~they are great!You are only going to have to pollinate if you want seeds?

great photo. i love these flowers so exciting to watch them open..

Do you have the humming birds?..they would be good for that if they can get to them...as far as the honey sucking birds.

no humming birds in wales Cat.....

Oh boy, I missed that while I was there.. what about the UK? none?

~no humming birds at all CJ!they require more exotic climes!

We have them here..we are not exotic...lol.. we are a lot like you....I think we have them all over the U.S...they do migrate..never really gave it any thought..perhaps the fact the UK is an Island country has to do with it. We do not have them in the winter.

~strelitzia come from South Africa and South America where there are humming birds~they never got as far as our cold wet little island!
Here is some info from Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden Capetown
The pollinator does not live in Cape Town and we get absolutely no seed unless we hand-pollinate. This appeared to be a curse at first but is actually a blessing, as we can be 100% sure that our seed is 100% pure yellow. In areas where the pollinator lives, to ensure 100% purity, the yellow plants would have to be physically enclosed or separated from any orange plants in the vicinity.

Hand pollination is done by mimicking the action of the bird, i.e. using a stick or a finger to depress the purple petals to expose the anthers, scraping some pollen off and transferring it to a receptive (shiny and sticky) stigma on another plant. After fertilization, the fruits develop inside the spathe. As they ripen, the capsules swell and protrude from the spathe, change from green, to brown and woody, and split to release the distinctive shiny black seeds with their tuft of oily orange hairs (the aril).

At Kirstenbosch, the grey squirrel that Cecil John Rhodes brought with him from England, Sciurus carolinensis, which has naturalized itself here, will consume nearly all the crop if unchecked. It takes the entire, almost-ripe green capsule, leaving nothing but the vandalized remains of the spathe behind. We have battled for years to find the best way of protecting our developing seed, and short of erecting a cage around the plants in the garden, we have found that enclosing each fertilized flower in fine-mesh chicken wire keeps the squirrels out.
These squirrels got everywhere!

Wow Arlene....this thing about no hummingbirds..reminds me of the Vanilla beans in Tahiti...all of those have to be hand pollinated as well because there are no bees there of any kind to do the work..I went into the Vanilla jungle garden with one crop owner and he showed me how he pollinated by hand...lots of work. but what a wonderful smell because of their vanilla bean drying sheds everywhere.

sounds lovely Cat.

nature is a wounderful thing Arlene

Certainly is Sandra!

so beautiful!