That's most odd I'd think where you live, since the only thing I've read anywhere about pale or white leaves usually refers to them not getting warm enough nights, and their regular metabolism for producing chlorophyll doesn't work properly under cool conditons much below 60-65 F or perhaps
15 C, and even more likely soil temperature lower than that.
It's also possible. since they're acid lovers the soil is too alkaline and they don't take the many micronutrients they need from the soil correctly when the soil isn't acid enough. I'm no expert, and only grow my heliconia indoors , where it is barely warm enough through the winter months, and I often have pale to almost white leaves all winter, and that problem is common even in warm sunny Florida where it can sometimes be a bit cool in the winter, and some will even die back to ground level, though they're said to recover once the normal hot weather returns. In short it's most likely not temperatures in your yearound warm climate (as far as I know), so it's probably soil pH and lack of acidity. Maybe!!! Or a shortage of micronutrents?

It looks to me like a problem with either the root system or your media. The sticky clay was actually probably good stuff, and either you damaged the roots washing it off, or the media you're using now is deficient in nutrition, possibly a micronutrient. What are you fertilizing with? Heliconias are pretty heavy feeders, particularly when they are confined to a pot, and pH can effect nutrient availability too.

Normally when you repot, you should either leave all the soil intact, or if you do remove the soil it helps to cut the foliage back too, so as not to put too much stress on the developing root system. Even if the roots look intact, washing the soil off breaks the root hairs, so you might as well just cut them off, and then cut the leaves off. If you don't want to cut the top back, then don't disturb the bottom-- that is true of most plants.

The other time when we see pale new growth is when they're growing in a really dark place, like underneath a table. Too much sun is definitely not the problem, most species like full sun, H. marginata included. It is also one of the easier ones to get to bloom in a pot, but it won't be happy in a small pot forever.

The plant looks healthy otherwise.

i think it is just from transplant,transport shock
i have found that if the plant gets shocked,for any reason,heliconias tend to "abort',any leaf which was in the stem,but not yet emerged.
the leaf grows,but it is as if the plant and the leaf are fighting!,the plant wants to forget this shoot,but the leaf says it wants to grow,but only can get what nutrients it can sort of steal.
i would just let it get on with it,as the plant will put out more stronger shoots,these ones will stop growing after they eventually put out this new leaf,but on occassions,the leaf wins,and the next leaf is stronger.
DONT YOU JUST LOVE THESE PLANTS!!!
I think they are more addictive than orchids[which is said to be a very HARD addiction to cure!!!!lol]
gary in CA

I'd agree with everthing the other posts said, and unfortunately after the best growth in years, with some good light, high humidity and lots of heat last summer, mine are again doing their winter thing indoors, and any hopes of getting blooms on the biggest and I'd hope mature shoots, seem to be for naught again. Since they're determinate bloomers I'd guess, the biggest shoots just stopped growing entirely and didn't reach their full potential , while meanwhile they continued to produce more , but weaker new shoots in the same pot. I see the fold where the newest leaves should have come out or should be comming out on the big shoots, but there's been no further growth there for two months , so I guess those shoots have decided to give up on further growth and most likely will not resume it come warmer weather next spring. I'd suspect with our very short season of optimal weather and good light, our winters indoors just aren't warm enough or sunny enough for them perhaps to succeed in blooming, but I still have hopes. A month from now , I may be lucky to still see green leaves, as mine get very pale through the winters with that somewhat cool soil, and not much bright light and in my case I am pretty sure it's the cool temperatures messing with the metabolism , that causes mine to have pale leaves. Once again , with the weather that Singapore gets, I'd doubt cool weather could be the problem and it is most likly nutritional.

I see you live in Michigan, Birdinthepalm. What helis are you trying to grow there? Are they indoors all year round? What size pots?

I don't know if it's possible to get them to bloom in that environment, but I had a few thoughts on possibly increasing your odds. First, choose species that either bloom most of the year, like H. psittacorum, or that bloom early in the year, like H. wagneriana. That way you won't need a longer flower initiation period than you can provide. Dr. Richard Criley at the University of Hawaii has done some research on flower initiation in Heliconias. This is a summary of one of his papers:

"Seasonal flowering behavior of Heliconia wagneriana was found to be caused by short daylength (SD) using artificial short days (8-9 hr) and long days as daylength extension or night break lighting with incandescent lamps. The natural time for flower initiation was estimated to be mid-to late October (11 hr 40 min to 11 hr 20 min) in Hawaii, and 120 to 150 days were required from the onset of inductive SD to inflorescence emergence. The results may be used to manipulate flower availability for flower markets."

H. wagneriana normally blooms around Easter for us, which you can figure out if you do the math. If the trigger for bud initiation is short daylength, it seems like you'd have a better shot at getting something out of it during your short growing season than a (for us) fall-blooming species, which would need more time.

Of course, there are all kinds of other factors, like temperature and light levels. As I mentioned before, most species do much better in full sun. And I would think that in order for short days to act as a trigger, there'd also need to be a certain number of long days too. Hmmm..... Criley doesn't go into any of that, I'll have to ask him about that. I don't think they all work on the short-day-trigger system either. You can also interrupt the short days by giving them a couple of hours of artificial bright light at night. I don't know if your typical indoor lights would be enough to do that, and that's why they don't initiate bloom???

H. psittacorum varieties and their hybrids bloom most of the year for us, and they have the added advantage of being small enough to grow in a pot, although their running habit makes them want to escape pretty quickly. Obviously if you're trying to grow anything huge, like H. caribaea, it aint gonna work in a pot, and they're late bloomers too, although they can have several flushes during the year.

Oh well, just thinking out loud here, you understand. Not trying to pass myself off as an expert at growing heliconias indoors because I have absolutely zero experience with that. Just thought I'd give you some things to think about. Personally I think you're nuts for even trying, but who knows-- if I had to move back to the mainland I might be doing the same thing!

Its a blanket statement that may not be accurate to say that heliconia don't metabolize well under "cool conditions" below 60-65. I don't know about marginata as that is one I don't grow, but the large growing species I do grow do fine in winter in the greenhouse with night time temps in the 50's. Of course they are not potted, they are in the ground. I started out always keeping my greenhouse at at least 60F, but the cost of heating it to that with propane is very high. So in subsequent years I have edged the heat down. Last year I set the thermostat to 55 and this year its on 52. Of course, we have only had about 4 nights this season "naturally" under 52, so its not a good trial YET. But, last winter and this past spring and summer, I had more blooms on all the heliconias than I have ever had before. Of course they may have just reached a "critical age" as well.... Bucky, Criswick, Burgundy, Guapa, Peachy Pink, Iris Bannochie, Tagami, all the Latispathas, Firebird, SHaronii, pendula Red Waxy, Jamaican Orange Thing, Tropica and many others have bloomed like crazy.

I'd suspect that it's not so much the air temperature at night as much as the soil temperatures, and most likely if they're right in the ground in a greenhouse, the ground doesn't go through the nightly drops as much as the air does, so the roots are still relatively warm at night, and I think part of the metabolism problem lies with cool roots, but as I said I'm no expert on Heliconias, and likely there are some "upland" tropical species that even enjoy some cooler conditions. I'd guess where daytime highs , say in central Florida in the winter are sometimes cool and with short cold snaps , those soil temperatures may drop considerably in the shade. Of course I didn't intend for the "cool temperatures" statement to be intended as a "blanket statement" as the plant world proves constantly that generalizations are often proved to be the exception instead of the "rule". I'd guess, if your plants were in pots , which are more expossed to the cooler air, the soil temperatures would drop considerably at night , but inground those temperatures don't drop so radically because of the radiational effect from below ground keeps those soil temperatures from dropping as much etc.

I'm trying to grow Heliconia guyana, and I'm not sure what species that is though it's an upright grower similar to the Ptsittacorum types, and it says it likes shade to part sun. I must say indoors it rarely gets, what might be considered conditions it might find in Guyana, and upon moving it outdoors for some warmer and more humid weather than even average for a Michigna summer, it "took off" and grew faster and healthier than I've ever known it to do indoors. Even in summer my indoor light isn't always the best, and in the winter those areas near floor level can be downright chilly , though I raise the pot off the floor a foot and a half. My house is much more humid than the average northern house in the winter, with those gas furnaces constantly removing all the humidity and making for some very dry air, and usually stays from a low of 60% humidity and much more humid in milder weather, I'd suspect neither the temperatures or the humidity and even possibly the light aren't, what it would prefer nine months out of the year while it's indoors, but I still have hopes it may flower some day. By the way, what's the average lenght of time from the emergence of a new shoot to the time it takes for the flowers to open or iniatiate. I've learned that after initiation of some kinds of tropical flower buds, that those can be very slow if the conditions suddenly get less than optimum, and in the case of my late flowering Bird of Paradise, those buds often won't even finish their cycle once the plants are brought indoor for the winter, and they just turn brown and dry up without ever maturing.

guyana is a cross between psittacorum and spathocircinata,as to the shoots of your other plant,just terminating,this is normal,i have found,that in less than ideal conditions,the plants tend to have to put on MANY more stems,than if they were in a more tropical area.
some of mine,took 5 years before they bloomed,after MANY years of antisipacion,false hopes etc.
one plant in perticular,kept on producing tall,flowering size stems for years,and finally flowered last year,but it had 29!!!! canes that did nothing!!
i think,its the size of the rhizome,that counts more,as i have got big rhizomes,planted them,and got flowers the next year.
hang on in there,one day,the plant will surprise you

By 'Guyana', I'm assuming you mean the one in the link below. In Hawaii we call it 'Guadeloupe'-- I don't know why, but we were calling it that long before I ever saw it listed as 'Guyana'. It is a hybrid-- H. psittacorum x spathocircinata.

This is one of my favorites, and probably our all-time best seller. It blooms most of the year for us, so the short-day trigger thing would presumeably not be an issue. Okay, scratch that. I guess you just don't have a long enough growing season. Since, as you say, it takes off during the summer months when you have it outdoors, that's obviously what it wants all year round.

As far as how long it takes from shoot initiation to bloom, it all depends on how fast it's growing. In most species, you'll get a flower only after you have 5 or 6 leaves on the stem, and if it is growing slowly, it'll take a lot longer to get there than it will if it's in active growth. There are a few exceptions (there always are), such as H. vaginalis, H. wagneriana and some others which are so seasonal they'll put out a flower no matter how far along the stem is (even with no leaves at all), and then there are others that will not bloom until their seasonal trigger, even if the stem is already mature enough. In these second ones, often you'll get "blanks"-- stems that never do form a flower. My suspicion is that if too much time goes by they just abort, but I've never really studied it. Even though the variety you have falls into neither of these groups and should bloom throughout the year if the stems are mature, perhaps the lack of good growing conditions for a long period is causing the buds to just give up.

Again, just conjecture, but if you could somehow supplement the light and heat it's getting during the off season, maybe it would help. That is, if you think it's worth it.

Here is a link that might be useful:

Yes that's exactly the one I'm supposed to have though mine has never flowered. It really does struggle here though I'm happy to say that from a downward spiral of decline over a year it got down to minuscule porportions as the older larger canes constantly died, and were replaced with ever smaller new canes. I think they're fussy about the soil as well and it was only after replanting the tiny shoots left in a more acid compost perlite mix, with local oak leaf mold included that it seemed happier and then just gradually picked up til it went wild this last summer. I'd guess another month of hot weather would have been enough for it to bloom, but it's already going down hill with the cooler conditions and less light. I'm considering a heating pad under the pot, though I burned a brand new vinyl floor and could have burned my house down by the looks of the floor, when I finally looked under the heating pad. Scorched black underneath , though the pad didn't burn, and of course , I know better, and approved heating mats are most likely the only way to go for some extra soil heat. My highs would only be in the mid seventies at best though and I think even those highs are a bit cool for my particular plant. It's good to know though , that they can flower at any time and aren't "seasonal" or daylenght determined plants I guess, though that might work out better for various reasons. The problem with the short day to initiate flowering though, is that my house doesn't warm enough even by the time for the plant to start sending up flower shoots nor is the light bright enough then either. Perhaps a high intensity light will be in the works here as well, though I already have flourescent ones. I'm a bit leery of those very hot burning high intensity lights however, and the cost! You've been most helpful, and informative as well, and thank you so much . I'll keep in touch!!

I have this plant as well and it was sold to me as TROPICA. Mine is about 9 ft tall in the ground and blooms year round. In fact its blooming now. It is the most often used heliconia in cut flower arrangements here in FL.

I see you live in northern Florida?? What do you use for winter protection on those rare frosty days outdoors if it's in the ground?? I see once again, I again have mite problems with mine and that's been a consistent problem with mine indoors. Outdoors with frequent spraying of a hose all summer there are no visable mites, but indoors is another thing. It also has the unusual habit with mite damaged leaves , after they've been washed and mites removed they don't want those little micorscopic wounds caused by the mites to heal over , and those just keep oozing sap. If I wash off the sap that hardens around the wounds, it just comes right out again til it hardens and seals the wounds again. A bit messy, but I guess some other plants behave the same way when wounded??

All of my plants are planted inground inside a greenhouse. I grow a lot of large growing heliconias, Jade Vines, ALpinia purpuratas, Rattleshaker Calathea, orchids, bromeliads,etc. I started collecting plants about 15 years ago, and heliconias were my favorites. I have 35 different types planted in the greenhouse, which have grown to maturity. Some I have removed and sold, either because I didn't have enough room to grow them properly, or because they were unhappy in my environment. Others I took out of the ground and put back into large tubs because I wanted more greenhouse space and knew I could bloom these particular plants easily in containers (Rostrata, Golden Torch, Golden Torch Adrian, etc). You can see some of the stuff in my greenhouse at:
www.bihaisrainforest.4t.com

Are you sure you don't have the one in this link, Bihai? It's flat and not glossy, and the dayflowers are orange, whereas the Guyana/Guadeloupe is twisted and glossy with green dayflowers. Naturally, just to be different, we in Hawaii call this one 'Tropic Fleur'. I didn't come up with these names, that's just what we got them as, and then later on I see these other names being used outside of Hawaii. Common names are pretty confusing. What we call 'Parrot', you folks call 'Golden Torch'. What we call 'Sassy' is 'Kaleidoscope' elsewhere, and on and on....

Anyway, both are psittacorum x spathocircinata, as is 'Alan Carle', 'Parrot', 'Keanae Red', 'BB Red' (you probably have different names for those too). 'Tropic Fleur' is a longer-lasting cut flower than 'Guadeloupe', but Guad is prettier. Both bloom year-round.

Here is a link that might be useful: H. 'Tropica'/'Tropic Fleur'

Here's another pic that shows the difference a bit more clearly.

Here is a link that might be useful: 'Guyana'

Hi, I'm a newbie to plants and have recently tried to "grow" a tropical garden on my roof terrace. I faced the same "white and tear" leaves problem with Mickey. Information from all of you have been very useful and certainly helpful to me as a starter. Thank you all!

Mickey, good to see a fellow Singaporean in the forum... been round the nurseries along Thomson & YCK but don't seems to find many good helis. Any recommendations?

Lisa,
I think the common name thing is a BIG problem. On second look, the one I bought as "Tropica" does look like the photo that you have of Tropica. But my psitt x spathno "ALan Carle" looks a lot more like "Guyana". I bought a "supposed" H. caribaea "Prince of Darkness" years ago, from what was SUPPOSED to be a reputable nursery... finally got it to bloom size (its 20+ ft tall) and it ends up "probably" being "Criswick" instead.(I already HAD a blooming Criswisk...now I have TWO. I really wouldn't have used additional greenhouse space for the second one, had I known...)ALso, I bought what was labeled as "H. purpurea" several years ago from a very reputable vendor at the Fairchild Gardens...when it bloomed it was the classic caribaea flower, but a weird color like a purplish, not a red...I deduced later that it might be a cultivar called "Burgundy", which, according to Berry and Kress, is another name for "purpurea", however, while it may be another name for the same plant, this isn't exactly the same plant. And it too is very large growing and a real space taker. I may remove it and let the Wagneriana "Rainbow" planted near it have the space.

This reminds me of the debate a few years ago over H. schiediana, and whether there were REALLY actually 2 separate cultivars..."plain" H. schiediana, and H. schiediana "Fire and Ice". Many people said that a certain nursery in Louisiana had tacked the name "Fire and Ice" onto regular old schiediana in order to make people think that there was a "new" plant on the market that was actually more cold hardy than the "old" one and therefore sell more. Now, I know that this happens all the time. Take Musella lasioscarpa...when it first came out from tissue culture, it was sold as "Chinese Yellow Banana". Now it has also acquired (here in FL, anyway)the name "Golden Lotus Banana". Who stuck THAT name on it?

I think that there are a lot of vendors who perpetuate the name confusion to their benefit. I also think some vendors make up new names for plants to try to sell more. There is a NOTORIOUS aroid seller on eBay who does this. They make up all sorts of named for Colocasias, ALocasias and Xanthosomas to make people think that there is a "new" elephant ear out there to collect. They have even tried to sell regular old Caladiums before as new, rare elephant ears and made up names to go with them. Fortunately, there is a hard core collector on Aroids who stumbled onto this vendor early on, caught on to what they do, and exposed them (at least to the folks on Aroids). But it doesn't stop them. They list and list, and when they get complained about for fraud, their auctions get yanked, but it doesn't phase them.

I think that there has ALWAYS been a difference in names between Hawaii and the mainland on heliconias. When I first got Golden Torch in, gee, I guess 1992, I got it from a lady in Hawaii and it was labeled "Parrot". She also sent me Golden Torch Adrian (labeled TORTUGA) and Keanea Red (which a friend of mine grew as St Vincent's Red)

Yeah, the name thing... A friend of ours had H. bihai 'Chocolate' (or 'Chocolate Dancer'), which he liked to pronounce the spanish way, but his workers didn't speak spanish and thought he was saying "chucka-lucka", which is pidgin for an old beat-up jalopy, so there's a whole bunch of people on Maui who now call it Chucka-lucka.

It would be nice if there were a definitive online registry that we could all refer to. Seems like the HSI should have something like that, but they don't. The best thing out there is the HSPR's site, and of course the Puerto Rico names don't all agree with Hawaii names, and when you've been selling something under one name for years, you don't want to change it or everyone will get all confused and think it's something new. I try to keep the botanical names updated, but I don't like to mess with the common name once it's established. We have occasionally had to name things ourselves when we couldn't find any common name already on it, but our intention was never to defraud or confuse people, quite the opposite. If somebody in another part of the world is doing the same thing because they don't know our names, I don't know what to do about that. All you can do is try and see a picture of whatever you're buying. Some online sellers are pretty good, but others are notorious for mislabelling things. There's one well-known tropicals seller in CA who's got half their stuff ID'ed completely wrong, even allowing for regional differences. No wonder there's confusion.

Most of the ones we've been talking about are on the link below. There's more pages too, if you go to the home site. Keanae Red is not the same as St. Vincent Red, which is pure psittacorum. You can see the difference here. The pic of Alan Carle is not too good, but it is flat, glossy, and 2-toned gold and reddish orange, whereas the previous ones we talked about are a solid orange. I was a bit dismayed to find that the psittacorum we named 'Lisa' some 20 years ago is being called 'Borinquen Midnight' in PR. I'd never heard that before. Pretty name, but I think I like ours better! ;-)

Here is a link that might be useful: HSPR heli file p. 5

Ha ha Lisa I like "Lisa" better too.
I have Chocolate Dancer...its one of my very favorites now. It was weak for a long time in a container...I almost lost it s few times to severe spider mite infestation. But once I got it into the ground in the greenhouse it took off like a rocket and has bloomed several times. My other fave is Banana Split.

I believe I know who you are speaking of in CA. I used to be a loyal customer, but no more.