Bird of paradise plant care, indoors and out
A bird of paradise wants the brightest spot in the room and water judged by the soil rather than by the calendar. Three Strelitzia species and one unrelated shrub are sold under the name, and this page covers the Strelitzias, from telling yours apart to why it has not flowered.
- The brightest spot you have. In a dim room it stalls and each new leaf comes out smaller.
- Water when the soil is dry two knuckles down. A pot kept wet rots the rhizome.
- A young plant fits the 1.8 litre pocket. A grown one does not, so plan the floor pot.
Bird of paradise plant varieties: orange, white and giant
Four plants are sold under this name and only three of them are Strelitzias. Clemson Cooperative Extension separates them, and its factsheet is worth more than the label on the pot. The orange-flowered one is Strelitzia reginae, with stiff concave leaf blades about 15 cm across and 45 cm long and an arrow-shaped blue tongue under the orange petals.
Strelitzia nicolai is the one that gets away from a room. NC State Extension records it at 6 to 9 m tall in the ground, on a woody stem up to 45 cm across, with grey-green leaves reaching 2 m long and white and blue flowers out of a purplish-black bract. If you are choosing between it and a Monstera for the same bright corner, this is the one that eventually wants the whole corner. The third Strelitzia is the juncea form of reginae, whose leaf blades never open out and stay as rolled spears.
The fourth is not a Strelitzia at all. Caesalpinia gilliesii is a shrub from a different family sold under the same common name, and the ASPCA warns against confusing the two because the Caesalpinia is the more toxic. If yours is a woody shrub with red and yellow flowers, search for that name instead of reading on. The labels alba and augusta belong to the same muddle, because nurseries use them loosely for the large white-flowered plants. What decides the care is the leaf in front of you rather than the word on the tag, and the artificial versions need nothing at all.
| Variety | How you recognise it | Light | Fits a wall pocket? |
|---|
| Strelitzia reginae, orange bird of paradise | Stiff concave leaf blades about 15 by 45 cm (Clemson), on a clump NC State puts at 0.9 to 1.2 m tall and wide. Orange petals, blue arrow-shaped tongue | Full sun to partial shade (NC State) | While young. A mature clump needs the floor |
| Strelitzia nicolai, giant bird of paradise | Grey-green leaves up to 2 m long on a woody stem, white and blue flowers from a purplish-black bract (NC State) | Bright indirect, tolerates partial shade (NC State) | No. NC State records it at 6 to 9 m in the ground |
| Strelitzia reginae var. juncea | The leaf blades never open, so the plant is a clump of rolled spears. Flower slightly smaller than the standard reginae (Clemson) | Full sun to partial shade | While young, as reginae |
How much light a bird of paradise plant needs
Give it the brightest spot you have, and gentle direct sun does no harm. NC State Extension puts Strelitzia reginae in full sun or partial shade, and the RHS asks for a warm, sunny room with plenty of bright light, adding that a little shade while the plant is in flower stops strong sun bleaching the colours.
A dim room does not kill this plant. It stalls it, and three things show you that is happening. Each new leaf comes out smaller than the one before it, the stems lean hard towards the window, and the soil stays wet for days after watering because the roots have almost stopped drinking.
That last one is the signal worth acting on, because it tells you to water less before the rhizome sours. If the brightest spot in your home still is not bright, the plant is in the wrong room rather than the wrong pot, and the guide to low light houseplants covers what does cope there.
Watering a bird of paradise plant without rotting the roots
Water when the soil is dry two knuckles down, and never because a week has gone by. Root rot on this plant comes from watering a pot that was still wet, which NC State names alongside poor drainage as the cause.
Light and warmth decide how fast a pot dries, so the same plant in a bright room drinks far more than it does in a dark one, and no calendar can know which you have. Lift the pot instead. A pot that still has weight in it has water in it. Clemson describes the cycle as wetting the mix thoroughly, then letting it dry a little before the next watering, and the RHS shifts that further towards dry from the end of November, when the plant is barely growing.
The two failures look nothing alike once you know them. A plant that went too dry droops from the stems and comes back the same day you water it. A rhizome that has sat wet yellows from the bottom leaves upwards and does not come back. A saucer left full underneath is the usual reason for the second one.
Soil, pot and when to repot a bird of paradise plant
It wants a free-draining mix and a pot only slightly bigger than the roots it already has. The roots here are thick and fleshy, so standing water round them does more damage than it would to a fine-rooted plant.
- The mix. The RHS uses a loam-based, peat-free compost with added grit. NC State records loam and sand with good drainage, so the grit is the part to keep if you substitute.
- The drainage hole. One that actually runs. Empty the saucer after watering rather than letting the pot stand in what came through.
- The pot size. Go one size up, not three. The RHS records that keeping the plant slightly pot-bound tends to encourage flowering, so a pot with room to spare buys you leaves at the cost of flowers.
- When to move up. Move it when roots push out of the drainage hole or the plant tips itself over, not on a season. The RHS repots every couple of years in spring, after flowering.
How big a bird of paradise plant gets indoors
It gets big, and the giant one outgrows a normal ceiling. The published heights are the part to be careful with, because almost every number in circulation is an outdoor or habitat figure being repeated as an indoor expectation.
Here are the real ones, each attributed and each labelled for where it applies. NC State puts Strelitzia reginae at 0.9 to 1.2 m tall and wide, and Clemson puts it at around 1.5 m, both as garden plants. NC State records nicolai in the ground at 6 to 9 m tall and 2 to 3 m wide, on a stem that thickens to 45 cm. Indoors nothing reaches those, because the pot limits the plant and a pot you can lift is a small pot.
What you can act on is the shape of the growth rather than a final height. A well-lit plant adds leaves that are each a little larger than the last, so it widens as much as it climbs, and it stops widening when the roots run out of pot. Once the tallest leaf meets the ceiling the new ones bend against it and tear along the fold.
The living-room question the forums keep asking comes down to two things, and neither is the height. Is the light in that room genuinely bright, and does anybody walk past the leaves, because passing traffic shreds them faster than anything indoors. If the answer to either is wrong, pick a plant that suits the room from the plant care guide instead of trying to make this one fit.
Why your bird of paradise plant will not flower
Most plants that do not flower are too young, too dark, in too big a pot, or the wrong species for the job. Take them in that order, because the first three you can do something about.
Maturity comes first, and it is described by the plant rather than by a number. A flowering-size Strelitzia is a full clump with several mature leaves and offsets around it, not a young plant with three or four. Light is second, and it is the one most often wrong indoors, because a plant that is only just getting enough light to hold its leaves has nothing spare to put into a flower. Pot size is third, and the RHS records slightly pot-bound plants as the ones that tend to flower.
Species is fourth and it carries the most weight in practice. Strelitzia reginae is the one that realistically flowers in a pot, and NC State records its bloom in summer and autumn while the RHS puts flowering in winter and spring, which is the difference between a Carolina garden and a British conservatory. The large white-flowered plants are a different proposition. NC State records nicolai flowering year round in the ground and notes it may take five to six years to start, and in a living room it very often never does. If yours is a nicolai in a pot indoors, the honest answer is that you are growing it for the leaves.
A bird of paradise plant outdoors, in the ground or a pot
It lives outside all year wherever the winter stays off frost, and in a pot that comes indoors everywhere else. Work from the conditions rather than from a place name, because the same four things decide it on any terrace.
- Frost. This is the hard limit. The RHS says the temperature should never go below 10 to 12 °C, and Clemson brings plants in when it starts dropping below about 15 °C.
- Wind. It shreds the large leaves faster than anything else does. Both the RHS and NC State record wind tearing the foliage, so a sheltered corner is worth more than an extra hour of sun.
- Hours of sun. More is better here than for most houseplants, and a summer outside is usually what produces the following year's best growth.
- Bringing it back indoors. Move it before the first cold nights rather than after them, and check the undersides of the leaves on the way in.
Is a bird of paradise plant toxic to cats and dogs?
Yes. The ASPCA lists Strelitzia reginae, under the name Bird of Paradise Flower, as toxic to cats, dogs and horses, with GI irritants as the toxic principle and mild nausea, vomiting and drowsiness as the signs, caused mainly by the fruit and the seeds.
NC State rates the severity as low and records the same signs for pets, adding abdominal cramps, nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea for people and skin irritation from contact with the sap. Neither source reports anything worse than that, and this page will not add an effect neither of them lists.
One naming trap is worth knowing, because published pages fall into it. The ASPCA holds two entries under this common name and only one of them is this plant. The entry to read is the one whose title ends with the word Flower, which is the Strelitzia. The other is Caesalpinia gilliesii, the red shrub, and the ASPCA rates that one as the more toxic of the two. If you have a cat that climbs, put the plant somewhere the climbing does not reach, and put something like a Peperomia in the pocket at cat height instead.
A bird of paradise plant on the wall
A young one, yes. A grown one, no. The pocket holds 1.8 litres of substrate, about what a 15 cm pot takes, and a Strelitzia builds thick fleshy rhizomes that fill a root run and keep going. It outgrows the pocket rather than settling into it, so the move to a floor pot is something you plan for rather than a failure.
While it is in there it earns its place, because the leaf is the point of this plant and a young clump gives you the full shape at a size a wall can carry. Get a season or two out of it, then pot it on and put something that stays small back in the pocket. A Snake plant takes the same bright spot and stays put.
Mounting means drilling, and it is one hole. The board hangs from a single hinge on a single wall hook, so the wall side is one screw and one plug. Plasterboard needs an expansion plug, brick takes an ordinary one, and tiles need a tile bit first. Hang it at eye level or a little lower, because you will be reaching in to check the substrate. Planted and watered it is in the order of a heavy framed picture, so take it down with two hands. The mounting guide has the full sequence.
- Soak the root ball, then squeeze it gently to lose the loose substrate from the outside.
- Half fill the pocket with a free-draining mix and firm it against the back.
- Set the clump in with the crown level with the pocket rim, not below it.
- Fill round the roots, firm once, and water until it runs from the bottom.
Bird of paradise plant problems and their fixes
Most of what looks wrong on this plant is either normal or a watering problem, and the split leaves are the normal one. The tear runs in from the edge along the line between two side veins, and the sources name physical damage rather than disease as the cause. The RHS records leaves becoming shredded and tatty in windy spots and NC State records them tearing in wind, so indoors the equivalent is a doorway, a walkway or handling, and a plant nobody brushes past keeps its leaves whole for longer.
| What you see | Why | The fix |
|---|
| Leaves splitting in from the edge | Wind, a walkway or handling. Not a disease | Move it out of the traffic. Do not trim the tear |
| Leaves curling inwards along the length | The root ball has gone dry, or the air is very dry and warm | Water to the bottom of the pot and move it off the radiator |
| Brown tips and edges | Dry air, or salts building up from feed | Flush the pot through with plain water and cut back the feeding |
| Yellow leaves from the bottom up | The roots have been wet too long | Empty the saucer, let the soil dry two knuckles down, then water |
| A new leaf that will not unfurl | Too dry while the leaf was forming | Water consistently. Do not open the leaf by hand |
| A plant that has stopped growing | Not enough light, or the roots have filled the pot | Move it to the brightest spot first, then check the drainage hole |
How to prune a bird of paradise plant
Pruning this plant means taking whole leaves off at the base, and that is very nearly all of it. Old, yellowed and badly torn leaves come away where the stalk meets the clump, and everything else stays.
The mistake is tidying. Trimming a split leaf into a neat shape does nothing for the plant and leaves a cut edge that browns within a week, so a torn leaf that is still green stays on and keeps feeding the clump. Spent flower stalks come off the same way, at the base, once they have dried.
- Pick out the leaves that are yellow, brown, or torn back past half the blade.
- Follow each stalk down to where it meets the clump at soil level.
- Cut it there with clean secateurs, flush with the base, in one cut.
- Leave green leaves alone however torn, and take dried flower stalks off the same way.
Dividing a bird of paradise plant
Dividing means splitting the clump at the rhizome. This plant is not taken as a cutting, and the RHS and NC State both give division as the way to make another one.
Do it when the plant has outgrown the space rather than on a schedule, and only when the clump has more than one crown. The RHS divides in early spring, taking off offsets that already carry a healthy set of leaves and roots. Be ready for the trade-off before you start, because a divided plant sulks and can take a long time to flower again. Clemson records divisions flowering sooner than seed-raised plants, which is the argument for dividing rather than starting over. A hand fork will not cut a rhizome this thick, so have a clean sharp knife or a pruning saw ready. If you have never divided anything, a Spider plant is the one to practise on first.
- Water the plant well the day before, so the root ball holds together.
- Slide it out of the pot and wash enough soil off to see where the crowns join.
- Find a fan of leaves with its own roots attached. That is one division.
- Cut the rhizome between the crowns with a clean, sharp knife or a pruning saw.
- Pot each division into a pot only slightly wider than its own roots.
- Water once, then keep it on the dry side until new growth shows.
Where should I place a bird of paradise plant?
At the brightest window you have, out of a draught and not above a radiator. Keep it off a walkway too, because leaves that get brushed in passing tear along the veins.
Does a bird of paradise plant clean the air?
No. None of the five horticultural sources behind this page records any air-cleaning effect, so this page does not claim one. What it does do is put a large architectural leaf in a bright corner.
How fast does a bird of paradise plant grow?
By leaves rather than by centimetres. A well-lit plant pushes out a new leaf that is a little larger than the last one, and a plant short of light makes smaller leaves or stops making them. NC State rates the growth of the giant one as medium.
Can a bird of paradise plant live in a bathroom?
The humidity suits it and the light usually does not, so the window decides it. A bathroom with a large bright window works, and one with a frosted pane the size of a postcard does not.
How much does a bird of paradise plant cost?
Price follows size and species more than anything else, because a plant this slow-growing is priced by the years in it. Garden centres, nurseries and the large home stores all sell them, usually as small reginae or large white-flowered plants with little in between.
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