I recently bought a Bird of Paradise plant from Home Depot [$29]. It has at least 4 leaves with splits or tears in them. Is this common for these plants? I think improper handling or dryness in store probably caused this. Here's a pic, plant on left.

No, that is perfectly normal for them. They split easily and that allows the wind to blow through. It is possible in a greenhouse to grow them in such a way that few leaves split, but it isn't the norm.

Thanks so much for the reply. What's the flower timing for these beautiful plants? Once a year, winter or summer?

Your plant will not flower for years. They have to be mature to flower. Mature Strelitzia Nicolai means 15-20 feet tall. Most people never get theirs to flower in colder climates. This one is in the ground in a very warm year round climate, about 15 or so feet tall

Its not uncommon for them to start to resemble the Traveller's Palm, Ravenella madagascarensis, over time because the outer leaves will die off and you will have to trim them, then you get something that looks like this. But you rs may never get this big in a cooler climate in a container

I had one in a 30" container, in virtually fun sun indoors, that managed to bloom when it was about 10' tall. It started out as a 15 gallon can and took about 5 years to bloom. Mealybugs and mites galore. Once a week spraying with warm water was the only thing that kept their population down to not hideous looking.

This kind of bums me out. My GH has about 8' of headroom at its tallest point. Guess i'll never get to see a bloom. Live and learn. I do like the exotic look of the leaves so it's not all bad. My tree frog also likes it.

I kept a traveler's palm on a 30 gallon tub for years, it got too big for me to lug it in and out of the greenhouse. I have a 20 ft ceiling, so could have accommodated it, but had no place to plant it in the ground. I eventually planted it out, it freezes about every other year and comes back, so needless to say its never gained any size.
CalPoly 5 years is doing good LOL.
Some folks here have managed to keep them up by the house and they have gotten 8 or so feet tall in between freezes, but I don't know a single person here who has ever had a bloom. We don't get the orange birds to bloom here either...its too wet in summer

It did eventually reach the skylight which was 14' high. It kept burning in the sun up there until I cut that trunk down. After about 8 years none of the smaller trunks ever got big enough to bloom. The law office got merged with a bigger firm, I lost the service and all the big plants died from lack of water.
A real bummer, but that's the way things go sometimes.

People always want to zone push with these for some reason. I am in 9A, its hotter than hell in summer but we can have a hard freeze in winter. Our first freeze of the winter is actually tomorrow night. We are supposed to drop to 27. We've already had some 30's but no 20's. Its these very few nights below 30F that will set something like a white bird back. People do plant these outdoors here, and if they have the right microclimate, or if they go to the lengths of covering it with a big plant bag, they can get them to make it without too much damage. All the people that have that microclimate are in town, where there is a lot of crowded infrastructure, asphalt, brick, sidewalks and buildings radiating a lot of heat. I don't live there. I live in the woods. All the microclimate I have at my house is tree canopy, and its not as good as in town. So I wouldn't plant this in the yard at my house, therefore I have no chance of a bloom. Just one half zone and 2 hours south, they can and do have these out and blooming. I could plant one in the greenhouse, but I don't really have the space and its not something that I am just dying to have. I get to see them when I go a little farther down, I have to be satisfied with that

I was browsing plants on the web and i think ETSY had a yellow flowered one called something Gold and they stated it only grew to 4 feet.

jpm995 said: I was browsing plants on the web and i think ETSY had a yellow flowered one called something Gold and they stated it only grew to 4 feet.

'Mandela's Gold' is a variety of the regular bird-of-paradise S. reginae.

Yes Mandela's Gold. There is also a leafless bird of paradise

Leafless? I can't picture that in my mind. Edit to add a local shop has a yellow flowered Bird of Paradise plant that's not labeled can i assume that it is the dwarf variety [4']?

Actually, the leafless BOP, Strelitzia juncea, is THE most cold hardy of the BOP's. It can take to 25F. But its very difficult to source, places that get it sell out almost immediately and its expensive.

Strelitzia reginae in the orange form does not get more than about 4 ft. When I lived in Los Angeles in the 1980's, it was like the state flower almost LOL. Almost every yard had one, and they were constantly in bloom. The Mandela's Gold is like the orange, just yellow, so it will have the same size

This one was in a 5 gallon can about 8 years ago. It loves that bright, sunny corner.

you know I am jealous of that LOL

Well i picked up Mandella's Gold, had to get a small plant the big ones were in a Greenhouse that was being fumigated. Here's a bad pic. Edit to add it's about a foot tall.

Put it ut in the sun in the Summer, feed it well and keep it moist and you may get it to bloom in 5 years or so.

Cool nice find! I recently popped for a juncea