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.

Be careful not to water the plant too much. It is very sensitive to water, so too much of it will give the plant a disease. You should allow its roots to dry out a little bit after one watering before you water it again.

It can take at least full three years after planting a seed for the flower to reach its full beautiful potential. It is a very fragile plant and is therefore difficult to prune. As tough as it can be to take care of, the bird of paradise flower's beauty and uniqueness is worth the effort.

Thomas Fryd looks at how Madison Avenue took the white bird of paradise plant and made it popular as an indoor houseplant. Also over at www.Plant-Care.com you'll find and ever growing library of plant and landscape resources that is only a click away.

Source: www.articlealley.com