My Heliconia schiedeana - Claw Flower

Whoa... that's big!

Meanie:

They can grow bigger - to more than 8 feet/ 2.5 meters tall.

That could hold a lot of spider mite then!!

Meanie:

Outside they don't get spider mites.

How odd - I suffered an infestation on three plants in the garden this summer!

Meanie:

It is very strange! The pink Angel's trumpets to the right of the Heliconia is infested with spider mites now. I'm not sure why bananas and Heliconias get spider mites indoors and not outside.

Perhaps they prefer the Angels Trumpet. Like over here if you plant an Oxide Daisy near by runner beans the black fly will go for Oxide Daisy and leave the runner beans alone.
Lovely healthy plant you have there.

Yes, the spider mites do prefer the Angel's Trumpets.

Yes, I need to get my Heliconias looking like this again. They looks pretty raggedy!

They might grow better then if you take off tge raggedy parts the goodness can all go into the good growth.

They're all growing very fast now. I won't cut them back until September.

I shall look forward to seeing the flower then.

Hopefully they will bloom!

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It's funny because you can see my coffee tree in back of the Heliconia. It was looking really good back in 2010.

Yes I can see it looks great .
Perhaps one plant by it is competing strongly with your Coffee tree .
We over here try not to plant to close to other plants that are coming up at the same time as one will take the goodness out the earth from the other feeding and is likely to kill it the weaker one.

I think it started getting too much sun when my neighbor's big Oleanders got the horrible blight which killed them.

Yes, it's a good idea not to plant so closely together. Most cases they do pretty well, though.

What a shame it killed your plant s from next door having blight .

That s good to hear they do pretty well.

The Oleander blight has killed many Oleanders here.

My neighbor's Oleanders would get huge and create a lot of shade for my plants during summer. Now, they're all dead and the roots were taken out.

Most likely because he has let his get so big no aor getting around and in to it that is horrible you lost all your because of your neighbour not keeping his in check .

The blight only attacks Oleanders. For years this blight has affected plants hit-and-miss around the state...now, I'm starting to see it affect the thousands of big bushes planted for many miles along the freeways. It's sad because they make a good freeway barrier shrub.

That is such a shame.

I ve just checked try watering your plants near the Oleanders with garlic powder mixed with water.

That's strange. I'll have to check it out. I've never heard of that before. :>))

I do it with my roses to keep the green fly and blite off so does our Queen s gardeners at Buckingham Palace . Lori tried it on her plants and it worked but she was nt amused coming out on her porch in the morning with the smell of garlic ?

That's really good to know. I hope I won't have to do that. LOL!

lol Andy if we smell a waft of garlic coming over here we ll know you ve tried it.

LOL! :>))

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