Pakistan Gardening Forum

Post from my grandfather growing his Heliconias in Karachi:

I Sajid Ali Khan is Senior citizen of PAKISTAN, resident of KARACHI.

My hobbies are GARDENING IN MORNING AND GOLFING in afternoon.

I am growing exotic and perennial plants in my front garden and vegetables in backyard kichen garden. A verity of imported HELICONIAS are very healthy ,in good quantity and quality.Being of BANANA FAMILY needs sunny location and security from fast wind.
The HELICONIA verities are:
1-BEHAI has red vertical "flower size 12"to 18".
2- ROSTRATA has parrot colored hanging flowers size upto 24".
3-Extasexy has 9 to 15 fingers pink/yellow colour flowers size 12" to 20"".
4-Heliconia yellow has a simple yellow flower.
These plants growing upto. 15 feet height.

Now to talk of problem of growing HELICONIA of other species. Last year I imported
1-pink bush
2.firebird
3.exotic
4.red devil
5. Island yellow
Unfortunately these species are not growing well.they arrived with beautiful colored flowers. I need sincere ADVICE from experts garden lovers.
Thanks in advance.

If anybody knows this then please contact me on mazhar.qureshi@yahoo.com

You seem to have good experience with growing heliconias so I do not know how much we can add to this. However, you mention they require good light. I've been interested in getting heliconias for a long time and have done some research. My information tells me that most of them need dappled light or even shade. Maybe you have the new and probably smaller plants in full sun which is causing them to suffer. Also a rich soil and moisture help.

Dear Aykhan,

thanks for your reply. My grandad is one of the pioneers of heliconia in Pakistan and it was he who imported most varieties here and have been displaying them in flower shows since years.

His 5 varaites are growing WONDERFULLY. most of them are not available in Karachi at all and he got them directly from Thailand. You can see the pics here...
https://www.facebook.com/groups/284763308288132/

But its the other varieties which are causing problems. From our research most of them perform best in full sun, constantly moist but not wet soil and very fertile land. However these specific varieties might have requirements as you said. Will surely pass the message.

Regards

Very interesting. Never thought different heliconias would behave differently. Let me take advantage of your experienece and ask you how heliconisa can be expected to perform in Lahore weather. Our problem is the dry high temperatures in May and June and then the cold winter with maybe 6 weeks of temperatures just above freezing at night. What to do to protect them herefrom the severe dry heat and then the cold and should I expect to see blooms in Spring ie March/April and then the monsoon ie July to Sept?