flowers and birds

What a marvelous plant the bird of paradise flower is! It is

very colorful and unique. The large long-stemmed flowers look

like a real bird emerging out of irregularly shaped green leaves

that look like boats.

The boat like leaves have a red or purple color around their

edges. This color contrast looks intense next to the green on

the center of the leaves. The flower itself has l large number

of bright orange pointed petals. In the middle of the orange
flower is a vibrant blue arrow-shaped spike.

The plant contains quite a few sets of flowers like this. Also,
it is not a small plant. It grows up to five feet high and three
feet in diameter. Each plant blooms multiple times per year as
well.

In areas where the weather is warmer, the bird of paradise blooms
in the winter and spring. The plants can also grow in
greenhouses in colder regions. In this situation, it can bloom
all year long if the conditions are correct.

Because of the nice weather needed for the plant to grow, the
bird of paradise is considered a tropical plant. It cannot
survive if the temperature drops to below 30 degrees Fahrenheit.
If it will be that cold (even FL gets colder than that
sometimes), you must take measures to protect it. It can do well
in greenhouses, but it does best in the very warm, natural
tropics.

Such a beautiful plant is not easy to care for. It requires a
lot of attention and care, and is not easy to feed. It needs a
high quality liquid plant food to be used as a fertilizer. Also,
in the summer it needs several applications of blood meal and
bone meal.