Cutting the Bird of Paradise

While visiting Oceanside last year, we found a lovely stand of White Bird of Paradise. I was pleased to see that the KOA where we are staying now has a couple of big White BOP plants. As always, the blossoms are lovely.

But the plants here are full of big wads of dead and decaying stuff. It turns out that when Bird of Paradise flowers pods die, they don't fall off. They stay attached to the plant, looking like abandoned rat nests. Not very nice. 

I decided to trim these, happy I could restore them to a much lovelier state. 

But there were some weird moments. First, the flowers pods are quite heavy and there are usually several pods joined together. So when I cut one off, it fell with a big thump. I felt like I was running a guillotine, and lifting severed heads to put in a basket.

But the really weird thing is what a Bird of Paradise pod looks like right after the pretty white petals fall off. I have seen trees that bleed, but nothing like this. The pods look like the jawbone of some animal, with broken teeth set in bloody sockets. Seriously, this is nasty!