Hi there. I'm new to this site and am not sure how this works. But I live in Ft Lauderdale too and have quite a few plants to offer for trades. I'm looking for lobster claws and would be happy even with the rhizomes alone. I can dig em up too! If you'd like to trade, perhaps you can let me know what some of the plants are that you're looking for and we can see if we're a match??? Thanks! Phaedra

I have talk to heliconia grower mant years ago. He advices to start th rhizones in a pot with a loose media and let grow in that pot for several months. I like to add keep them moist but too wet and keep them in a partly shade place because you live in a hot and dry area. After a month or two, lightly fertilize with liqiud fertilizer after you water of course. Water them with a B-1 solution. Good luck.

I have purchased Heleconia from Aloha Tropicals and mostly received plants I did not order (wrong color, wrong type of plants). I have purchased from many other companies and had rhizomes that mostly did not make it. I now have found the greatest company called Plant Group-Thailand and the plants are cut very well and almost all do well. They have a Hawaii location and you get get a terrific selection of Heleconia and other tropicals from them. Please e-mail Trish at Filimoehala@hawaiiantel.net and make the subject clear it is for Heleconia or Tropical plants. I will send you more information on this company that has saved me a lot of money with their low prices, exceptional selection and amazing service. It is fun to help this terrific Hawaii Company and to meet other gardeners in Hawaii and on the Mainland. You do not have to get a phyto-sanitary certificate and the shipping and handling charges are also reasonable with them. They should be rewarded with more business for their excellent service and quality.

What Lisa advised is correct. When I sell heliconia rhizomes, I remove ****all**** the root material and force the rhizome to fully resprout and reroot with its new owner. This is how I received all of my rhizomes over the last 15 years. Its really best for the plants. This method makes the plants start from scratch, manufacturing a tolally new support system for themselves. As long the bulk of your rhizome is firm hard plant tissue, you will get new rooting and growth quickly if you treat it right. As to the potential "mislabelling", that happens to all of us. Different plants are called different things in diffrent locales, different marketers use different names for plants, etc. I actually do NOT believe that a "dwarf" Rostrata exists. I grew many heliconia in containers for many years before I got my greenhouse that allowed me to plant them all in the ground under protection. You know what I found out? The Berry and Kress book, then considered the "bible" of heliconia, was WRONG. Parameters they gave for plant characteristics, light tolerance, height, etc were NOT uniformly TRUE!!!! I had several cultivars grow to proportions hugely above their parameters when grown in a greenhouse under optimal conditions. So much so, I have had to remove them. No heliconia I know will survive here outside in the ground in zone 8B. ALL are greenhouse dependent here.