World Naked Gardening Day, garden questions

World Naked Gardening Day, garden questions

Q. Each 12 months our gorgeous orange clivia blooms outside in our shade back garden, but the tops of the foliage are usually yellow and brown. What causes this discoloration of the leaves?

Georgiana Flaherty, San Jose

A. The most likely result in, if the crops are otherwise healthful and blooming, is too substantially water. Clivia, a South African indigenous plant, prefer to be just barely moist, developed in soil with great drainage. Check out your irrigation and soil moisture to make confident they are not obtaining also a great deal h2o.

2 times a yr, clivias need to have a rest period — in winter prior to flowering and straight away soon after spring blooming. In the course of individuals situations of relaxation, you ought to end fertilizing them and water should really be considerably lessened to the moment each individual a few to four weeks. When new progress commences to appear, you can resume your weekly watering and month-to-month fertilizing schedule.

Older foliage on the vegetation also will flip yellow and die as the crops develop new leaves. In that situation, the yellowing is usual and very little to stress about.

Clivia thrive with benign neglect. They never like to have their roots disturbed, so they only require to be dug out and thinned each and every 3 to 5 years. They also bloom most effective when they are a bit overcrowded.