Anyone has Heliconia pstittacorum 'Choconiana' rhizomes/plants for trade?
Thanks.
Jen
Heliconia pstittacorum 'Choconiana'
check home depot and lowes they always have that around now
Just saw them at Lowe's in Deland last weekend.
I found them at HD. Thanks!
I wish we had stuff like that at ours :(
Me too! The only place you can find that here is at the expensive nurseries, and that's if they even have it.
I most areas of Florida choconiana is grown as an annual or not at all. Most people in South FL don't bother with it either because its not resistant to cold and looks really ratty in the winter months, or in the extreme far southern areas it can be invasive. Its the smallest flowered heliconia so doesn;t pack much of a punch in the gardens down there, where its competing with a lot of other way cooler stuff, but up here in the more northerly part of Florida lots of people grow choconiana and some of the larger flowered psitticorums and even the psitticorums x spathnocircinatas as annuals in beds or as container plants that they overwinter and pull out again every season.
So do the Heliconias ever come back or after winter are they ALWAYS done for good?
Well....that depends.
I used to be a heliconia grower. I grew over 40 different heliconias of all different species at one time.
The only heliconias that come back for me here in zone 8B are H. schiediana, H. rostrata and H. latispatha. However, because they freeze to the ground every year, they never bloom. I keep pots (15-20 gal) of Rostrata that I bring in and out just to have some blooms, and I keep a container of H. hirsuta, which blooms freely in a container and is one of my faves, and a container of the variegated El Tigre. I got rid of all the others long long ago. Just got tired of them. I also have a specimen of the somewhat rare Bihai 'Lemai' variegated in the greenhouse.
Heliconias are Zingberales and are somewhat in the same class as things like Traveller's Palms, Birds of Paradise, and gingers, but, they are not really in the same class. While those other things can sometimes go dormant or be 'die back' perennials, Heliconias have no dormancy period. They are always either in a period of active growth, or dead. So mostly they don't make good candidates for container plants, because they like to spread rabidly and many have natural heights of 12-20 feet.
The psitticorums are the dwarves of the heliconia world and you can do them on containers, but their flowers are the wimpiest of the genus (Lady Di, Andromeda, Parrot, etc) The next step up is the psitticorum x spathocircinata (Golden Torch, Golden Torch Adrian, Guadalupe, etc). The problem with them is they fast outgrow their containers. 30 gal tubs get heavy heavy heavy to haul in and out.
So I wouldn;t recommend heliconias to anyone who doesn;t have a dedicated system to overwinter them, like a greenhouse.
Gothqueen, you overwinter Tacca outside, don't you??? In zone 8 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WOW, lucky you :)
I'd be very excited if I could maybe have a little piece of the variegated El Tigre :) :) :) Maybe? hehehehehehhe
Sorry, I don't do out of state trades, Josh. You can probably get it from eBay
I actually went ahead and bought a plant last night lol I guess I liked that much! haha
Jen, you have dmail --