Looks like a Psittacorum Heliconia, they're quite nice and are pretty tough, though not so much with temperature. Do you know which colour it is?

an employee told me it's orange..I vaguely remember seeing orange (I go there a lot)..was reading yesterday and guessed the one you said was what I had..hope it will survive the winter inside..do you have these?..from your user name are you in a warm climate?..I'm jealous..

love how they look..have a nice winter..we won't!

I've overwintered psittacorum in a zone 5 greenhouse. You should ask someone from California how well they do in low humidity, though.

"Where I am"

Can you be more vague?

aruzinsky..in a greenhouse but it still died back right?..

"aruzinsky..in a greenhouse but it still died back right?.."

No.

No heliconia die back in a greenhouse but some just don't do well overall because the roots need to be kept very warm. Psittacorum is a relatively robust heliconia that does well in a greenhouse.

don't have a greenhouse so I'll bring it into my house and see what happens..had a ginger (curcuma) in a pot..took it inside in the fall..would yellow and die back but leaf out in the spring..had it for several years..then one year it didn't come back..thought this plant might be the same way..have a caladium that does this too..

Curcuma come from mainly a monsoonal climate, they die back in the dry season, winter, and come back in the wet season, summer. So it's part of their natural cycle to die back. Watered during it's dormancy can cause rot, especially if it gets a bit cool. Wet soil will cool down quicker than dry soil. H. psittacorum on the other hand don't go dormant in winter and need to be insulated from cold.

I have Caladiums that regularly grow in summer and go dormant in winter. But also have others that grow and go dormant any time of year. I can't see any pattern in their growth.

tropicbreezent..love tropical plants but don't have the right climate..was surprised that I got a few years out of my curcuma..after summer I put it in my cool dark entry..high ceiling, ceramic floor, north facing door..ignored until spring..just cut off foliage once it died..same with caladium..for the heliconia I'm going to try my kitchen..a south facing patio door, 2 skylights and a window..I have cannas and a banana in the ground on the east side of my garage..will cover with garbage bags full of leaves..did this last year for the banana and it came back (was it's first year)..so I added some bargain cannas a few weeks ago..both are zone 7..rewarding when it works..

Been years since I last tried growing a larger variety and though i kept it alive , moving it indoors for each winter , it did downward spiral health wise almost immediately, when I moved it indoors in early fall or late summer with growth screeching to a halt and losing leaves , with new growth coming out smaller and smaller all winter , until little of the plant seemed to have survived , and I only surmise many of the various species will not find even average indoor winter temperatures warm enough for most of the heat loving varieties and in my case it was found even in warmest south Florida they tended to die back if temperatures were somewhat below average for any length of time , and into central Florida they rarely even survived those mild winter temperatures . Sorry to say , though the name of mine seemed well entrenched in memory for a long time , it fails to come to me right now . I guess it's time for me to drag out the old tropical plant catalog where I bought it over twenty years back, to refresh my memory ' though 'something' Guyana , comes to mind. and a common commercial variety in Hawaii think ?

Gary..mine is inside now and not too pretty..so did yours bounce back when you put it out after winter was over?

My heliconia did bounce back usually within a month or so if we were having average summer temperatures here , and even much moreso when it might be much hotter and especially more humid than usual , so they are real warmth lovers , but do crave those high humidities as well, and around here some hot days can be more desert like if the winds are strong out of the southwest and as low as the teens or twenties relative humidity . Mine never did bloom, and unfortunately I'm quite sure many tropicals require quite long periods or ideal temperatures and humidity to bloom and our relatively short summers just weren't long enough . Finally in one particularly chilly fall and with little artificial light the many overcast dull days with low light and chilly temperatures it was on it's way out by mid winter. As long as even a small piece of rhizome survived it could recover , but once that succumbed to rot , it was gone.

They are extremely marginal in California. Usually only very high or the northern Mexican Heliconia's (botanical garden types hard to find) not often seen for sale are good here. In the world only one- H.shiedeana is fully hardy in mild California.

In soucal they can push it more.but still, rot can set in fast in winter.

Gary..I'll be happy if it looks decent just this summer..will not be long lived in my Indiana climate..tropicals are a summer splurge here

stanofh..years ago I lived in San Mateo for 5 years..it's chilly at night..can see why tropical plants wouldn't like it..I did like the camellias and hydrangeas in my San Mateo yard..

I have to admit i wasn't quite as big a fan of tropicals until I'd moved to CA in the mid seventies , though I didn't have my own yard and just rented an apartment , but with all the walking I did , I was always taking in every new plant that caught my eye , growing just like any normal plant that might be growing it it's country of origin quite wild and after moving back to MI in the eighties I constantly felt I was missing so many tropicals I saw growing outdoors every day . I see one of several bird of paradise divisions does have a flower stalk already , so with any chance of sun , which can be rare here this time of year, it may actually grow to maturity and bloom for me . Has often been the case that the biggest oldest one , having been moved indoors in a somewhat dark hallway , would start sending up flower scapes and then they'd die before producing any blooms , due to the lack of proper light . Gro lites has helped in a few instances . I note my poor big spiral ginger has developed dead leaf tips on the leaders , where normally the biggest would be putting on flower scapes . Oh well, no blooms this year!

Gary..my neighbor grows bananas in ground..they overwinter with protection..she gave me one..it came back in the spring 2016..I bought some cheap clearance cannas and put them by my banana..2 weeks ago I cut the banana and cannas back and then piled garbage bags filled with leaves on top just like last year..these are planted on the east side of my garage..top pic is of my neighbor's bananas..bottom my tropicals..my banana leaves were a little beat up by this point..I love walking down my side yard that has a tropical vibe..and you can see them from the street..I'm ready for spring NOW...