Clivia miniatures - small, beautiful, rare and expensive

Above is a full grown plant with ideal dimensions grown under normal conditions the past 4 years in George. The photo was taken earlier this year. The leaf width is 9cm and the leaf length is also 9cm, giving it the ideal ratio of 1:1. As you can see from the photo above, the leaves are circular because of these ideal dimensions. It can be called a true round leaf. It grow as fast as any normal clivia, pushing out new leaves at a regular rate.

In 2006 when I visited Mr Zhu Jifu in Shenyang he has given me four miniature seedlings. Two of them variegated and the other two green leaves. At that time it was a new creation of Mr Zhu and he told us the price of a full grown broad leaf miniature is approximately 100000 RMB. These plants seldom flower, and if they flower it might be out of season. Of these four plants none has flowered up to date. Unfortunately this rare and beautiful plant did not escape the locust attacks earlier this year, despite of me entering the shade house a couple of times a day to get rid of them. This beautiful plant is now reduced to something worthless, but it will recover soon as only the leaves were damaged.

Above is another miniature that was given to me in 2006 by Mr. Zhu. This plant is even smaller than the one in the first photo with leaves only 3.5cm in length. The leaves are 5 cm wide as can be seen in the photos below.

Above photo was taken in 2006 when the plants were given to me as seedlings. They were at least one year old at that stage.  

   

Above - growing up as babies on my farm - their first leaves in South Africa

Above and below - growing quickly to become adults

Below - my Light of Buddha miniatures - they are from a friend in Anshan 

 

Below - a very rare crinkle face or raised vein miniature with hard thick leaves - from my raised vein specialist friend in Beijing 

Below - these two photos were taken in 2004 when I visited Mr Zhu for the first time. It might have been his first miniature that flowered and he might have used the pollen of this plant on his variegated darumas to start line breeding miniatures with broad leaves. A small % of dwarfs can be expected from his variegated daruma seed. Because miniatures has not been line bred for generations, a certain % of the seedlings will revert to darumas or the grandparents. The % will differ every time depending on the parents used.

The true reality of buying miniatures in China from wrong sources - I was caught several times. Some Chinese growers has mastered the art to keep the leaves of certain types of clivia short - almost like growing bonsai. Apart from keeping them in cool dark places, I suspect they spray or inject them with certain types of hormones or liquids. They grow very slow for a while and then suddenly explode. See the photo below taken on my farm. To build up a high quality miniature collection takes time and you must have patience. If you are interested in plants like the ones on this page or seed that can produce miniatures, please contact me at heingrebe@ymail.com