Hi I am interested in your ice cream banana pup. I have a pink crinum I can trade, also please check my trade list, the link is below. Thaks, Pat Here is a link that might be useful: my trade list

Sarah, You can grow and bloom the smaller heliconia in pots with some effort but you will need a greenhouse or similar structure to get them through the winter. Even though you protect them from the cold, it still doesn't mean they will make it unless you can also supply humidity and air circulation for they need both warmth and humidity. Then you have to be on the watch out for spider mites and scale during the overwintering season. I grow 15 or so different heliconia in containers. Four more are in the ground. I protected a cool tolerant heliconia, Red Angusta, this past winter with a portable greenhouse and small heater and it provided me with wonderful blooms in the early spring. Three others unprotected were frozen to the ground, Rostrata, Schiedeana, and an unknown. They are coming back just fine now, but with these heliconia, they only bloom on old growth (second year growth) so I will not get blooms this summer and will have to hope for a more mild winter this winter. My heliconia in the greenhouse, even though I supply them with heat and humidity still experience a decline each winter and by March, which is usually the safe time here to get them out in the fresh air, they look pretty ratty. If I am successful in keeping the mature stalks alive, them I get blooms; if I am not successful,usually due to mites or scales, then I start over again since these heliconia I am growning only bloom on old growth. Lisa is correct, most of these heliconia are in 15 - 30 gallon containers but a few can be grown in smaller containers. Here are my suggestions for a few small heliconia that you might try: any of the Hirsutas, Latispatha Distans, Stricta Valentine, Stricta Dwarf Jamaican. Any of the psittacorums will bloom in one summer; you just have to find a source for them. Many of the nurseries here in southwest Louisiana order them from wholesale Florida nurseries and sell them as an annuals since none are cold tolerant. IMHO, they are most difficult to overwinter. Very picky. Good luck, they are my all time tropical favorite. Steve

That's correct. Many heliconias can be invasive. The psittacorums are in that group. Left unchecked, your H. psittacorum Andromeda will take over! With regard to blooms ... Once a heliconia plant has completed blooming the plant will die. However, the next generation will most likely have started to grow at, or near, the base of the plant. That "at or near" part defines whether the plant is a runner or a clumper. Clumpers send up the new plant very near the mother plant. The new plant on a runner can be several feet away from the mother plant. Some heliconias have blooming "seasons". Others, like your psittacorum, bloom throughout the year. As soon as a plant is mature, it will bloom. So a large container or stand of psittacorums will appear to be in bloom year 'round, even though there are actually different plants blooming throughout the year. Hope this helps. -Ray

I've never been quite sure if H. latispatha and H. distans are 2 different species or if distans is just another form of latispatha (I've seen it described both ways), but I agree with Bill that that is what you have. Here is a link that might be useful: H. latispatha 'Distans'