Jeep461 Confederate Rose is a plant that likes water. If you can find a neighbor who has that tree any branch that is cut off will if just stuck into a bucket of water will take root. Strip off all the leaves and put a nice stick in water and keep in the shade you will see white nubs form soon then the root will not take very long before they are big enough to put into the ground. You need to keep it watered until it gets established. They can get over 20' tall and quite wide. They can be cut back to the ground each year to help control their size and shape The trunk can get to 12" across. I had mine cut back to 3' last fall and it it over 8' tall now. They bloom in the fall when the weather starts to cool down. In the summer months they will lose leaves when the weather is hot and dry but will come back in the fall with cooler weather and moisture. When I got my first start is was a 3' stick. Put this into the ground and it just sat there until we had a hurricane which brought lots of rain which knocked it over and had to be replanted. From all that rain it took off and ended up being about 8' tall and full of blooms in October, it has never slowed down since then so I have nice shade for my back window. I know this is the BOP site but you mentioned Confederate Rose so I wanted to throw this in for you. Thanks

Yes, you can prune it and prune it hard. New growth will come up from below. Fertilizer will make it grow a bit faster and have a darker green color, but your real enemy is the wind. Even a slight gust can tear the fragile leaves. BOP rarely looks good unless it's in a place where little to no wind can get at it.

Congrats for sure! I got a birds of paradise 2 years ago (orange one like yours) No blooms yet and there probably wont be any this year either. Lots of leaves (3 plants in one pot) and it reaches about a foot and a half tall). Once it blooms it usually willl always bloom again. I hear this like to be root bound too and that helps it bloom. I was actually really surprised with my birds of paradise, I left it outside to freeze in 30 degree cold and all my bananas got leaf damage as well as most of my cannas, but the birds of paradise had no damage at all. This plant sure knows how to handle a frost! I really hope to see some blooms on my bougainvillea this summer. All the leaves are off (spider mites) but I still think its alive so Im really hoping to see a great blooming season with that this summer. It not going to get any care though, no water, nothing except what falls from the sky. Good luck!

Nice looking plant Matt. What size pot are you growing it in? The one I had was a mistake. For Xmas one year, I saw some nice looking Dieffenbachia plants at Home Depot and my youngest daughter wanted to know what I wanted that year. I told her the big dumb canes from HD would be nice. She picked up a white BOP instead and I was kind of stuck for a few years until I was through trucking it into the greenhouse for winter and back outdoors for summer. Has anyone gotten a giant BOP to bloom as a houseplant? https://www.ourhouseplants.com/plants/strelitzia Here is a modest sized clump of giant BOP at Discovery Cove, Orlando in bloom (there is another tropical plant with similar looking blooms but much bigger - Travelers Palm - Ravenala madagascariensis but when you see it you will know immediately due to its fan like shape) And Hawaii Travelers Palm in Belize close up of spent blooms of tree above.