The sunny orange blossoms on Clivia plants contrast nicely with the bleak landscape outside the window during the harsh winter months … Their flowers seem to arrive just when we need them the most, after the craziness of the holidays has settled down and the cold of winter has settled in. Learn more about Clivia, including how to get it to bloom and how to repot it!
About Clivia
Most clivias are grown as interesting houseplants and, as far as houseplants go, there aren’t many that are tougher. Since they are drought tolerant, they can go for several weeks without water; in fact, they need a dry, cold period to initiate flowering.
The first question that might be asked about clivia is how to pronounce it. Is it KLIV-ee-ah or KLYV-ee-ah? It seems that either is acceptable in most circles, but the story of the plant’s origin points to the latter as the preferred articulation: In 1828, John Lindley, a botanist at England’s Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, named the genus to honor Lady Charlotte Clive (rhymes with “dive”), an avid gardener who had cultivated and brought to bloom the first Clivia nobilis in England (she may have been the first to do so outside of its native South Africa).
First collected by English naturalist William J. Burchell and brought to England in 1815, C. nobilis is a pendulous flower type like many of its cousins. It garnered much attention but fell out of favor following the discovery in the early 1850s of C. miniata, with its showier umbel, or cluster, of upright, trumpet-shaped, reddish-orange flowers. More than 200 years later, for many people, it’s C. miniata’s spectacular blooms that have the most appeal and make it the most common species grown in the United States today. C. miniata does require some special attention in order to be brought to bloom, but many people have done this and you can, too.
A member of the same family (Amaryllidaceae) as amaryllis, clivia shares with its cousin the characteristics of straplike leaves and similarly shaped flowers on a tall stem called a scape (although amaryllis blooms are substantially larger, and clivia retains its foliage year-round).
Clivia, also known as a bush lily, is a naturally evergreen, shade-loving, herbaceous perennial hardy only in Zones 9 and 10 in the United States. Although suitable for in-ground planting, it is vulnerable to frost and thus treated as a houseplant in cold zones.