How to successfully grow you own Clivias from seeds

This is a illustrative guide for beginners to grow their own Clivias from seeds.
By Following the steps and advice in this manual, you could reach as much as a 99% success rate with growing your own Clivias.

People tend to think that growing Clivias from seeds are very difficult, but actually it is one of the easiest plants to grow.
Step 1 - Harvesting the seeds
Soon after the plant finished its flowering phase, the berries on the plant will start to develop if has been properly pollinated. Pollination can happen either naturally by insects or you can pollinate it artificially. The photograph on the left shows berries starting to develop.

The berries will reach its maximum size but will remain dark green in color for about six months. You can harvest the berries once it turned red as in the photograph on the left. This can take almost a year after flowering.

When harvesting the berries you can just pick then from the stems. Some people cut the stem with berries. In our (South Africa) hot climate this should not be a problem. But cutting the stem might cause fungi to grow. So to be save you must dust the cut with a fungicide or ordinary Flowers of Sulphur powder which you can obtain from the chemist.

Berries are not always red when ripe. The berry on the left is the berry of a yellow flower. Ripe berries can vary from yellow to red in color.

After harvesting the seeds you can put them out to dry for about five days. Do not put it in the sun. Put it in a well ventilated shade area. Drying the berries will make cleaning of the berries easier.

If you have different colour of Clivias in your garden, label the berries and keep it apart. Example: keep all your dark reds apart from ordinary colours.

Step 2 - Preparing seeds
Now you take the berries one by one and break them open.  
Inside the berry you will find several seeds. The number of seeds per berry will vary from the success of pollination. We found that artificial pollination normally result in more seeds per berry. The most seeds I found so far in one single berry was twelfth.
The seeds are surrounded by a thin membrane. The membrane is prone to rotting and attracting fungi. When removing the membrane, be careful not to damage the seed's skin.
After the membrane has been removed you must wash the seeds in a diluted solution of dishwashing liquid (South Africans must use Sunlight Liquid). If you use Sunlight Liquid make up a solution of about 1 litre of luke warm water and one teaspoon of Sunlight Liquid. Wash the seeds properly to remove the jelly. After you washed the seeds let them dry. You can either put it on a paper towel or hang them in a orange bag. Drying must also take place in the shade and not in the sun.
Step 3 - Laying the seeds in

To lay in the seeds you will need a roll of kitchen paper towel, a plastic container which can seal tight and some water.

We use a normal curry and rice container (fast foods) witch is 70mm high and about 100mm in diameter. You can also use margarine-, ice cream- or food containers.

Tear off two blocks of the paper towel and fold into quarters. Put the paper towel at the bottom of the container.

 

 

Wet the paper towel. The paper must just be moist, there must not be access water at the bottom of the container. With the size container we use we add about 10ml of water.

Put the seeds on the paper towel, close the lid tight and now your seeds are ready to germinate. You must store the container at a warm place but not in the sun (not warmer than 25°C). On top of your fridge is a good storing place, the temperature is more or less the correct temperature.
The seeds will take about 3 to 4 weeks to germinate. You can open the container after two weeks to make sure that the paper is still moist. Remember that there must be no water in the container, the paper must only be moist.
Step 4 - Planting your new plants

This is what we were waiting for. The seeds germinated and are ready to be planted. You will note that most of the seeds have germinated. There might be some seeds which have not germinated yet. Carefully take out the plants which have germinated taking care not to damage the roots. You can plant everything of which the leaves are higher than 10mm.

 
Put the un-germinated seeds and seeds with plants smaller than 10mm back into the container. Moisten the paper towel again, close the lid tight and store it for another two weeks. Take out the plants that is ready to be planted and put back the un-germinated seeds for another two weeks. This process can be repeated until all good seeds germinated. If a seed turned black it is rotten and you can take it out of the container.

Now you can plant the plants in good potting soil. The potting soil must contain a large percentage of plant material. In nature Clivias grow under trees and likes loose soil with a lot of leaves and twigs in.

Keep the plants in a shady protected are in this container for at least a year. After a year you can plant it in your garden.
And that is it. Your Clivias will start flowering after 3 to 5 years.

And that is it. Now you can enjoy the rest of your flowering. Next year just before flowering season your berries should be red and ready to be harvested.

Remember (South Africans) to spray your plants with garden ripcord after the first rains to prevent those ugly lilly borers to destroy your plants. After your first spray you must spray your plants once a month with garden ripcord. Also have a look underneath the leaves for Lilly Borer's eggs.

Happy Gardening
Regards
Pieter Pretorius