GARDENING WITH SUSIE LONGDELL: Clivias burst into popularity

For years they were banished to a dark corner where not much else would grow and we didn't even pronounce their name as some say we should.
Now they are surging in the garden plant popularity stakes. Keen gardeners are even happy to pay as much as $50 for one and in a week's time the Bay of Plenty will host a show dedicated to this Cinderella plant.
What has caused this upsurge in interest in the clivia (pronounced clive-ee-a after Lady Charlotte Clive, a Victorian Englishwoman and granddaughter of Robert Clive)?
A key reason is fickle fashion. For years the clivia usually encountered in New Zealand gardens was a rich orange-flowered form of Clivia minata. It was shunned for nearly half the last century for the very feature that is helping making it popular today - its bright flowers.
Today's greater emphasis on plants with "good" foliage and the popularity of the tropical garden style has also boosted clivias' appeal to modern gardeners.
The shrinking of urban garden sizes has also helped boost its popularity because the smaller the town garden, usually the greater proportion of it that lies in the shade - and that is where clivia excel, often growing well where even weeds fails to flourish with any great success.
The number of clivia enthusiasts is growing. One is renowned New Zealand plant breeder Terry Hatch, of Pukeokohe-based Joy Plants.
He finds them the perfect partner for the mature totara trees that are a distinctive feature of his very large garden.
Closer to home, Ian Duncalf of Parva Plants grows them to perfection at Te Puna under other wide-spreading, dense trees.
Both these skilled plantsmen are breeding clivias and helping add to new colour options beside the "common orange" clivia, options that Terry Hatch believes are a principal reason for the plant's increasing popularity.
He has been interested in clivias for many years - his interest dates back to when he lived in England "where you could only grow them on a windowsill" and grew after he moved to New Zealand about 40 years ago.
Today they are a striking feature in his garden, which is attached to his nursery and open during the week but not the weekend.
There they are arranged in mass plantings, mostly in large single-coloured patches.
He started out with the "common orange" clivias here in New Zealand and with the help of just two or three plants in red, yellow and cream, has crossed and further crossed different ones to produce some excellent new forms with different-coloured flowers, different petal shapes, different flower stem lengths and angles and foliage varying in size, length and shape.
Notable achievements have included picotee flowers (with light-coloured petal margins) and a comparatively deep-red flower with a green throat.
Unfortunately, neither were flowering this week. Producing exceptional forms of clivia like these is - like most plant-breeding endeavours - a matter of extreme patience. As Terry Hatch points out, it takes about five years from pollination to the point where you know whether you have produced something that is special.
He has noticed that generally those seedlings that flower early in the life, say after only three or four years, nearly always turn out to be inferior plants, so there's no substitute for waiting the time.
When a form worth producing on a large scale does eventuate, it then takes time to produce sufficient numbers of plants to sell in commercial quantities.
This is why clivias, apart from the common orange one, can be expensive compared with other garden plants.
Clivia, a native of South Africa, usually grow without any attention in the Bay of Plenty and will even compete successfully with wandering jew, provided three essentials are catered for - and they are all very easy to take care of.
One is shade - the foliage yellows unattractively in the sun.
The next is frost protection, something that growing them under evergreen trees usually takes care of in frost-prone areas in the Bay of Plenty.
The third essential involves soil moisture conditions. Clivias don't like to be waterlogged, and in order to ensure good flower production the following winter and spring they particularly like dry autumn conditions.
Again the latter is taken care of naturally when they are planted under trees, because the trees create dry conditions at and near the soil surface in summer and autumn.
It does mean, however, that if you pamper them with plentiful irrigation you may not get the same flower performance as gardeners who leave them to tough it out.
They are, after all, excellent plants for tough conditions. You will be able to see some stunning examples of modern clivias, and find out more about growing them and, if you wish, buy plants next on Saturday, October 16 at the Clivia Show.
It is being put on by the Clivia Club of New Zealand at Parva Plants, Te Puna Rd, Te Puna.
For further information, either about the club or the show, contact Robin Scouler, the club's Bay of Plenty representative, on 576 9082.