A Tour around my Bay Window

Part One: Clivia miniata

Clivia, the Flame Lily or bush lily, grows in South Africa — and in my bay window. This plant has striking dark-green, strap-shaped leaves, and vividly coloured trumpet-shaped flowers. They are evergreen plants and prefer neglect to pampering. So — let them get pot-bound and let them dry out rather than over-potting and over-watering them. They will reward you for your neglect.

Mine is a mature plant and has produced a few flower heads quite naturally. The single-spiked plants you see in an indoor plant shop have been imported from commercial growers. However, if you know someone with a mature Clivia you could maybe ask them for an offset — these are the little plants that grow around the base of the main plant. Carefully cut off and potted up, and attentively neglected, they will take a year or two of growing, and then produce their own flowers.

And, on the other side of my plant is promise of yet more colour to come.

There is a lot of space in my bay window and I’ll be back to share with you more of its occupants. In the meantime, it is Spring outside, too, as you can see from my tour of the graveyard: