Even in Venice Beach the Alpinia purpurata is not winter hardy, and won't even like the typical night time temps in summer. This one is a true ultra tropical that only blooms in California if greenhouse grown. Near the beach, as you are, I would think that Hedychium gardnerianum is likely to do very well in full sun as long as it gets good year round water, especially in hot spells. The viviperous Ginger you have is probably Hedychium greenei, which is orange red in bloom and does create new offsets from the old flower stalks, and is not fragrant. I don't know what that particular Heliconia species will want in your location, as it is a species that isn't hardy enough to grow here in the SF Bay Area. I have seen this growing in full sun in the tropics, so I think it would do okay with full morning sun or dappled sun. It will want your warmest most protected conditions to get through winter, and may need to be grown as a container plant and given protection in winter to get it to actually bloom. The more heat you can give it in the growing season, the more likely you are to see it bloom.

Will trade for ferns and Cryptanthus to landscape my greenhouse floor with!

you have mail.

I am new to tropicals. I have no heliconia yet. I have moist ammended clay soil. Heliconia I am after: tall ones for a narrow bed/full sun and behind a hut in part shade. Smaller ones to mix in some borders with canna, ginger and philodendron xanadu for full sun to part shade, and some of any height that will be happy in containers in full sun to part shade.The online nurseries are rather expensive for experimenting ($10-40.00 plus shipping for rhizome if they even ship to CA). I just bought 10 rhizomes on ebay (Heliconia Psittacorum x Spathocircinata 'Guadelupe'for $35.00 incl. shipping). I really want to find (and support)some good tropical nurseries in Los Angeles/Orange County and I know that GW members know all the little mom and pop nurseries that I can't find using Google. I figure if i find the good heliconia sources they will have other tropicals that i don't even know that I want yet! I would have gone to worldwide exotics last saturday, but the weather bummed me out. My bedding plants: ginger- variegated zerumbet, kahili and butterfly. Cannas- Bengal, cleopatra, yellow king humbert, picasso, futurity red, lucifer and wyoming. Vines- petrea volubilis, Mascagnia macroptera, stephanotis, barbara karst bougie, a new rangoon creeper and several Clytostoma callistegioides. I am very shy in the canopy dept.I have a few queen palms, a large podocarpus and an 'ice cream' banana (1st fruit ripening as we speak!)but not much else to help provide shade. I am open to suggestions. Unfortunately my beds are narrow,2-4'w, and run the perimeter of the yard with a pool/concrete deck in the middle taking up a lot of space. I think i can cheat the beds out a little with containers and some canopy plants.i am meeting with a masonry contractor tomorrow morning to see if we can do something about the "rim border" to make things look more natural and reclaim some planting space from the concrete deck.