hey everyone welcome back to another plant video if it's your first time here my name
is james and i'm from sydney australia i started this channel because i wanted to share some of
my tips on what has worked really well for me in terms of indoor plant care today's video
is going to be about the birds of paradise or what i like to abbreviate it as the bop
what a bop
i'm going to be going through things that you should know before purchasing one and some tips
and tricks to best care for them indoors i'll be leaving chapter marks throughout the video if you
want to navigate through different topics but until then sit through and let me take you on a
journey look i'm gonna be real honest with you here when i was first seeking for
birds of paradise i actually had no idea that there were so many different varieties
the two common types that you will actually see sold at the nurseries or hardware stores are
usually the strelitzia nicolai and the strelitzia reginae there are other types of varieties out
there such as the alba the caudata and the juncia so back in early 2020 i was frantically running
around flower power at 4 40 pm trying to acquire a bird to paradise before closing time at 5 00 pm
i then asked staff where can i find a bird's paradise and they sort of pointed me to a
general direction and i walked on over and i found a whole row of these small birds of paradise about
nay height and i was trying to decide between these three that i'm going to quickly show you a
picture of here out of the picture i actually went for the one that looked a little bit more like a
shallot as opposed to the other two which was a little bit more luscious in growth because when
you do think birds are paradise at least in my head i think tall and strong so i did want that to
eventually evolve into that one day i then took it home and then did a little bit more research and
to my shock horror i found this youtube video of this time lapse and basically it was between one
to four years on the first year it was probably the same size as my own birds of paradise and then
on the fourth year i only found it actually doubled in size so probably like from here
to like here i realised that it was the strelitzia reginae as opposed to the strelitzia nicolai
anyway let's go through some key differences so this strelitzia reginae has boat-shaped leaves
and if it ever flowers it flowers the colour orange the strelitzia nicolai which is otherwise
known as the giant birds of paradise if it ever flowers flowers white also it has banana shaped
leaves i'm going to quickly take you outdoors now i thought i'd switch it up a little bit in today's
video by taking you to the outdoors and showing you the types of trelitzia's that you might find
i'm going for my usual regular run and i do notice that there are a few birds of paradise on the way
on my usual route right behind me you can see a strelitzia reginae i'm apologising for the audio
in advance in case it's a little bit windy but basically you can tell what is originated by the
orange flowers over there and i'm going to keep going on my run and showing you a little bit more
quite interestingly the one behind me is urgency and i actually didn't even notice
this until i looked a little bit closer and i was like oh that is a birds of paradise
uh but basically you can see that they've got really thin leaves and
apologies for the shiny forehead but yeah that's also birds of paradise
amazing
so i normally run past this apartment complex and notice that they have so many strelitzia's
planted in here i just wanted to show you why they caught the giant birds of paradise
the nicolai range in particular because check out the depth and size of this it is about triple my
height i can't even get it through the entire lens unless i spend downwards uh but you can also um
tell that they are a nicolai because they have um these white flowers that are flowering over here
and we're back easy for you i actually had to do some physical exercise out there
the birds of paradise originate in south africa and i'm a little bit biased towards the strelitzia
nicolai in particular because i feel like it gives your home such a what i think a classier
and more luxurious and tropical feel if you do have the space so if you haven't bought one yet
i would say the nicolai is the one to go make sure that you're reading the label before you
do so soon after i realised my fatal error of buying the incorrect birds of paradise i rushed
out and got the strelitzia nicolai which is the one sitting right behind me but as you can see
they do grow a little bit giant and it's gonna grow through my ceiling at any single minute now
so do only buy it if your space can accommodate it so i just wanted to quickly introduce you to
my birds of paradise reginae that i have right here unfortunately she's been attacked by spider
mites so i did have to prune her a little bit so she is looking a little bit sad and obviously have
the nicolai behind me the giant birds of paradise the one that i really wanted from the beginning
but essentially they are both beautiful specimens so you can't really go wrong it really depends on
the space that you have inside your home if you've got the luxury of space that'd actually be biased
towards the nicolai but if you don't you probably want to go for the reginae they're a little bit
smaller you can see them lined up for example at swimming pools because they can span a little
bit of a longer surface area as opposed to the nicolai they do grow a little bit larger in height
and scale but yeah totally up to you it's really a preference on what you like aesthetically
i would say that the care tips are pretty much the same across the two so let's get into it now
so let's talk about lighting bright light is especially important for the birds of
paradise they're usually used to that in nature if your home does not have bright light do not be
acquiring a bird to paradise they absolutely need it they can even tolerate hours of direct sunlight
so make sure that the spot that you're choosing it is actually a bright spot
unfortunately here in sydney i've actually seen a lot of birds of
paradises planted in shop fronts where there is absolutely like no light or even windows
and i get the appeal the birds of paradise look so elegant and appealing but if you don't have the
correct lighting conditions or at least some grow lights or some sort of mechanism to allow them to
acquire some light for photosynthesis then don't be purchasing one of the birds of paradise let's
talk about watering in proper lighting conditions the birds of paradise are heavy feeders meaning
that they need a lot of water to sustain i would usually recommend that you let your soil dry out a
little bit between watering i found that extended periods of drying out between my waterings
actually gave my birds a paradise some brown tips so my recommendation is actually watering soon
after it is dry i actually experienced first hand with my strelitzia reginae that when it wasn't
receiving enough light it wasn't consuming enough water and i found that first hand i was dipping
my finger into the soil and finding that the soil was still wet within a week i soon realised that
the place that i put it had not enough light and i'm always stressing the importance of light when
you're looking after plants obvious signs of over watering include droopy leaves excessive splitting
browning of the edges so you want to prevent some of these signs as with all plants there will be
some natural buildup when you are watering it with different sort of chemicals such as
liquid fertiliser and oils etc so you do want to look at leaching the soil from time to time
regarding repotting repotting is a little bit of a strenuous exercise with these guys obviously
because they're so giant so it is desirable to have someone else there with you so you're not
causing your plant any harm when you're trying to transport it in and out of a different pot or into
the same medium they do prefer to be a little bit more pop bound you could probably get away
with not repotting for about 18 to 28 months you do want to repot a little bit sooner so you can
replenish those nutrients in the soil because generally after a year's time they do sort of
dissipate typically you want to choose a pot that is about 5 to 10 centimetres in diameter
a little bit larger than the previous pot if you do want it to grow however if you're happy with
the size you could replant it in the same medium however make sure you're changing out that soil
repotting the birds of paradise is recommended in spring and summer because that's when the plant
is the strongest so my personal recommendation on a potting mix includes 70 premium potting mix 15
charcoal and 15 perlite you can substitute the premium potting mix for for example 35
cactus mix and 35 orchid mix they have roughly the same ingredients another mix that you can consider
includes 30 peat moss 40 compost and 30 pumice or perlite for those in australia i'll leave a link
in the description box with the products that i purchased from bunnings maintenance maintenance
maintenance the thing that i always remind people to do is making sure that you're wiping
those leaves down the birds of paradise needs it especially the leaves are so large and they have
a massive surface area for dust to accumulate on them so make sure that you're wiping this down
periodically and you're also preventing it from snarky pests some of the common pests that your
birds of paradise will experience are scale aphids mealy bugs as well as whiteflies i've
actually also been attacked by spider mites which has been crazy i do see they suck the life out of
your plant anyway i'll probably just hone in onto one topic which is the mealybugs i've gone over to
multiple mates places who do own birds of paradise and they all have mealy bugs for some reason
this kind of white cottony looking pest that is attached to the leaf so the tip that i recommend
to get rid of mealy bugs includes getting a cotton swab putting a little bit of rubbing
alcohol and if you don't have any rubbing alcohol i actually substitute this for hand sanitiser
obviously during these covered timings everyone's got a bit of hand sanitiser at home i dip that in
to the hand sanitiser i bring the cotton bud over to the leaf and then i start swirling the cotton
bud around to get rid of the mealy bugs after i've cosmetically removed all the mealybugs
i'll grab some paper towel prepare a little bit of a solution of a little bit of diluted dishwasher
liquid as well as some neem oil then i'll give it a thorough wipe down so a common problem that
you may face with the birds of paradise is that sometimes the leaves may get stuck and you may
want to just give it a little bit of a helping hand i've got two methods here the first one i
try is misting and if that's not too effective the second one i go for is a little bit more
physical in action where i grab some paper towel in lukewarm water and then kind of glide that over
the leaf and then sort of manoeuvre it out finally onto my favorite topic on styling so i'm a little
bit particular on how i style my plants in general and even with the birds of paradise when i first
bought it the bases were actually perpendicular to each other i didn't like this personally because
i didn't have much apartment space and it was growing a little bit too wide i found that if
i brought the bases parallel it would allow me to achieve a little bit more of a luscious look
as well as giving me a little bit more apartment space so when i repot it i actually pulled the
root system out and then kind of realigned the base then i used the steak and some rubber tires
to just encourage the direction i wanted to grow out of even though that was a risky operation my
birds of paradise was pretty much fine afterwards i didn't notice much repot stress it was still
pushing out new growth which was a positive sign so other things i do is i grab some scissors and
i go and i snip some of the brown edges that can occur don't be alarmed if some of the browning
is spreading it is a little bit normal but then just make sure you're monitoring the health of
your plant to figure out what the signs are so the signature look of a birds of paradise
is that it stands tall and strong at least in my head anyway so i wanted to buy a pot that matches
that sort of description i bought one that was an outdoor pot the one that i've got right here
and basically i grab another pot and i place that on the inside because most of your nursery
pots out there won't be of this height so then essentially i place that on the inside
as so and then i place the birds of paradise into the same pot
but with the saucer underneath so they're making sure that there are no leakages
when i do water it but remember to do your measurements before you're purchasing these
pots i mean i purchased mine online and i made sure that i did the measurements of
the openings of the diameter because you don't want to be left disappointed that it doesn't fit
thank you guys so much again for watching i really hope this video was useful for you
feel free to drop me a comment or a question about the birds of paradise in the comment section below
i'll get back to you as soon as i can i drop some regular content so i'll leave some floating
icons so you can dive into some other cool plant related stuff on my channel but remember if you
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but until then stay safe eat heaps of cake and i will see you in my next video bye for now