Best pendant blooming Heliconia for zone 10a?

[Kostas]

Hello!

I would like to grow a tall,pendant blooming Heliconia like Heliconia rostrata for example or another with similar shaped blooms of other colors(I have seen a couple other nice species as well with greenish/turquoise blooms lined with yellow or red but don't remember their names). Which Heliconia species of the above( or which other that looks like the above)grows well or at least ok in zone 10a and i can expect them to look decent after winter and bloom unprotected?

Thank you very much in advance!

[bahia]

In my experience with a zone 10a climate but without much real summer heat, you'll have much better luck with upright spike flowering species such as H. schiedeana, latispatha, spissa, bourgeana and angusta. Particularly useful to select from these if you really want good winter appearance and/or winter bloom. I occasionally get down to -1~-2°C in winter here, and these grow well here. I am not as sure about H. bougeaena, because I've never actually had this one, but apparently someone in Oakland has had it, not sure whether he got it to bloom.

[Brian Bruning]

I had bourgeana from "Desert to Jungle" Gary Hammer's nursery and it grew and bloomed great for me in Oakland until my construction workers killed it. I'm looking to buy or trade for another start of that clone. Brian 510-798-4252

[Kostas]

Thank you very much for your replies! It's great to know at least some species do well! If there isn't any pendant blooming one that can do well for me,I will definately look into them!

Here summer heat is not a problem,we have plenty with 30-35C being common dailly summer temperatures. Would any pendant blooming Heliconias do well?

I think H. chartacea is another one that interests me.

[Tropicgardener]

Thank you very much for your replies! It's great to know at least some species do well! If there isn't any pendant blooming one that can do well for me,I will definately look into them!

Here summer heat is not a problem,we have plenty with 30-35C being common dailly summer temperatures. Would any pendant blooming Heliconias do well?

I think H. chartacea is another one that interests me.

I don't like your chances with H. chartacea as it would be for too tropical for your area.........definately a z11 or marginal z10b plant.........The hybrid between H. chartacea (Sexy Pink) and H. platystachys (Sexy Orange) does show more cold tolerance than either of its parents.

[bahia]

I'd say that if you can reliably grow Papaya and get ripe fruit, then you stand a chance with growing some of the hardier pendant Heliconia species. My understanding is that there really aren't any locations in Greece that come close to being a USDA zone 10b/11 climate, and so your growing situation is more analogous to southern California than southern Florida, but I could be wrong. I suspect that you regularly dip below 40F at night for weeks on end, and that isn't ideal for the more tropical Heliconias. On the other hand, the species I listed above do quite well here in the San Francisco Bay Area zone 9b/10a conditions, where we regularly get down to 32F or slightly below each winter, and have temperatures below 40F for over a month in colder winters. Tropical Heliconias definitely don't do well with such low temperatures.

[Kostas]

Thank you very much for your replies!

Pyrgos climate is Zone 9b/10a but a very warm one,more reminiscent of Florida Zone 9b/10a as we never dip to 40F or below for more than a few hours and even that happens only very few times each winter. The record cold of the area is -3,6C at the coldest part of a single night and then up well below 0C after sunrise! Its rare to have a winter that cold,about once every 20years and its about that rare to have temperatures below 40F for anything close to a day! Daily winter max is almost always above 10-13C at the coldest part of winter and average temperature about 9-10C for the coldest month. Usually we see 1-2 nights a year that reach -1to -2C and even that,not every year...

As for Greece having Zone 10b/11 areas,it does have and most of our islands and even part of Peloponissos are zone 10b+ having huge undamaged ficus trees while Crete should have Z11 areas as well being even more to the South. I am not that south though,just have a good microclimate...

What is the limiting factor for growing Heliconia? The frosts/cold or the lack of winter heat? Would growing under low canopy from where the Heliconia would be able to emerge during the summer but remain protected from any frost,help? Do they need lots of heat or prefer cooler weather? The bananas in my area generally dont get damaged except for freak winters and grow very vigorously in our summer. I understand Heliconia are more tender but have no experience with them.

Which pendant blooming Heliconia would probably do best in my conditions? Would H. rostrata have a chance to look good most of the year?

Thank you very much in advance!

[bahia]

Most of the more tropical Heliconias, which unfortunately for you includes all of the pendant types, do not like cold wet soils that stay cold for months over the winter. South Florida is advantaged in this aspect because their winter is the dry season, and at their latitude the day time temperatures are quite a bit warmer on average than they are in southern California, as are their night time temperatures, as the ocean temperatures off the coast are considerably warmer than off the southern California coast. I think the Mediterranean water temperatures are more in line with southern California water conditions. The occasional -1/-2C temps you get every winter would be enough to kill back foliage, and would also tend to support my thoughts that the night time temperatures are a bit too low for too many weeks to keep these Heliconias happy. I have only been to Crete but one time, and even on the south side of the island at sea level, it really didn't look like a zone 11 micro-climate judging from the typical plants I saw around the towns there. If you are willing to try H. rostrata and tent it for the coldest periods to create a micro-greenhouse effect on the coldest days, you might have success. I still tend to think that the winter wet soils in combination with cool night time temperatures will not be ideal. A few people in southern California do manage to get some of the more tropical Heliconias to bloom in a zone 10b/11 setting, but not unprotected the entire winter. I think a fruiting Papaya tree would really be the ideal indicator plant for your conditions. If you can get good fruit on an outdoor grown/planted in the ground papaya in your town, then go for it with the Heliconia rostrata.

[Laisla87]

I live in a warm temperate climate about 33 degrees south and have rainfall all year. I can grow the larger Heliconias very well (Jaquini, Kawauchi), rostrata does very well as do the angustas (red & yellow Christmas). I'd be reluctant to try the more cold-intolerant ones.

I can't keep the psittacorums alive over winter, but I think that is more about the rainfall in winter rather than the temps.

For me, a problem is actually sourcing the plants. I try to avoid anything mail-order as they take so long to recover

Edited January 10, 2013 by Laisla87