All the ones I have are true to color. We usually don;t harvest the bulblets, just let them fall where they will and with they resprout next season, scoop up the small plants in a small amt of soil and relocate at will.

I have a variegated one, unfortunately don't have enough to trade or sell.

Bihai, I would never have anything worthy of trading you anyway. Anything I have you can get at the nursery down the street.

I have looked on ebay and googled globbas but I have yet to find a source for selling, except for the wholesalers that want you to buy a bazillion of the same thing.

I bought three from Tom Wood, one has fuchsia colored blooms, one has bronze colored blooms and the other is white but nothing like the wentii.

The Dancing Girls (Mauve ones) and Dancing Dragons (white ones) produce far fewer bulblets that the yellow ones (Dancing ladies, Shomburghkii) and the Purple Globe (globuliferia). I know that there are a few new hybrids...there is a RED one that was placed on the market a few years ago but it didn't catch on for some reason. I haven't seen thebronze one. Tom Wood had an open house a few months ago but I didnlt go...I went to the first one he had and found the plants to be extremely overpriced for small plants. His defense is, of course, that these are "his" hybrids and you can't get them anywhere alse, but still.....one yellow hedychium or pink one is much the same as another yellow hedychium or pink one...just a different name to it. The variegated globba I have is very spare at producing bulblets, very slow multiplying, but it does reliably come back every year.

FernAly, I'm surprised you didn't find any retail sources when you googled Globba. I've come across a number of them. Usually when I google any type of ginger, one of the first things that comes up is Tim's site (Gingerwood Nursery). He has several, as does Montoso Gardens, Aloha Tropicals, The Plant Group and Heliconia Paradise. The last two are more wholesale quantity oriented, but the first three will sell individual plants. I gather from some other posters that sometimes the GW will remove anything that looks like it is promoting a particular business. Although I haven't had this experience, I'll just let you google those and find them yourself. No endorsement is implied here.

Bihai, when you say variegated, are you talking about a silver stripe, like on G. pendula 'Silver Comet', or true variegation, i.e. white patches or margins etc. on the foliage? If it's the second one, I want to know more! You probably saw the thread a few months back where Tim, Kyle, minibim and myself were discussing leaf markings etc. on Globbas, and none of us is aware of a variegated one, other than some with silvery markings (or virussy stuff, but that's another story).

-Lisa

I am looking for some too. A nursery here had the pristine pink ones but I rotted them last winter. I could get some from Aloha Tropicals but I hate to pay their prices. Too expensive for inferior plants. I had bought some rhizomes(globuliferia) from Dave Skinner last year and yep...I rotted those too. Hopefully he sells again on ebay this year.

The only one I have that is still with me is the mauve dancing ladies. Now that I know to keep them in pots and dry during the winter I hope to add to my collection. They are my favorite gingers for my small yard.

Bahai, I did go to Tom's open house and truely enjoyed it. I spent about $150. What little I got from him was things that I really couldn't find else where. There is a guy that lives maybe fifteen miles from me, that I got most of me hedychiums from but, I live in North Alabama and it's hard to find anything beyond the norm, when it comes to gingers. I'm a sucker for that ginger that I haven't already got, so I don't mind paying a little extra. I bought several hedychiums from Just Fruits while I was in Tallahassee, I did get much more for my money there.

I have several of the Dancing Girls, I have the Jewel White but not the regular green leaved. I also have the purple globe that I got from you. That is why asked about the bulblets. It is blooming like crazy and flopping over from the weight of the little bulbils.

Lisa, thanks so much for the sites. I bought all of my jewel globbas from Tim. I also have the silver comet. I will check the sites you listed and see if there is something I just can't live one more day without.

Jay, I have to grow them in pots, they are a pain in the rump to store in the winter and I am still madly in love with them. I have rotted one or two myself. I have to make sure they get very little water in the winter.

I'm wondering if the rotting during the winter isn't due as much to a drop in temp as it is to overwatering. The reason I say this is because ours are all in pots under the open sky, and we have wet winters, so even though we don't intentionally water them more than once a week during dormancy, they get rained on. Even so, we lose very few, compared with, say, the curcumas. It doesn't get down much below about 60 degrees at night here, even during the winter, so maybe they just don't like to get cold.

Oh, Lisa. Shame on you! I didn't find any globbas, that I don't already have, on the sites you listed but I certainly found plenty of other things at Montosa Gardens that I'm surely gonna need real bad. ;)

What you said about the cooler temps makes sense. I have lost several heliconia due to getting them late in the season and the temps dropping before they can established. I now make sure I buy them in mid Spring so they have plenty of time to get going.

I have never had problems with Globbas rotting here when left outdoors (zone 8B). Our winters are not especially wet but probably average about 2-3 inches a month. Curcumas depend entirely on the species - some are very prone to rotting. Kaempferias also depend somewhat on the species, but are somewhere in between. Among the deciduous Zingibers, Z. collinsii is the worse for rotting, others not so bad.

You cannot really compare with Heliconias or with Alpinias, Hedychiums or Costus since they are evergreen plants. Some will come back fine from the rhizomes even though they are evergreen in nature and some will not. Some will stay in a semi dormant state during cool weather and then sprout just fine when the soil warms.

I thought I had something special in Globba "white dragon' but then I saw a collection that a friend purchased from Tim Chapman at Gingerwood. One word to describe them is "WoW". They were not on his site the last I looked, but I must get them.

Elle, aren't they the coolest little things.

Dave, our winters are COLD and wet, some nights down in the low teens. I have hedychiums, shampoo ginger and a few curcumas in the yard but everything else goes in the greenhouse, I'm too chicken to try even a small piece of them in the yard thru winter.

I really didn't mean to compare globbas and heliconia other than to say that if my heliconia are young when our temps drop they usually rot, even if watered sparingly. We are already dipping into the low forties for night time lows and then zooming back into the eighties for day time highs. Gonna have to get that greenhouse ready soon!

Lisa I meant the Silver Comet. I call it variegated, I guess, because it isn't all green. Its my favorite, but slow to grow and spread compared to the others.

FernAly, even when you get your greenhouse, you will still have to be very careful growing heliconias in pots in there not to rot them with overwatering in winter. You should cut back drastically on water if they are not planted in the ground, even in a heated greenhouse. Air circulation, light and heat are not the same as outdoors, more akin to being in a very well lit house. If you have enough space in the GH to plant them, it would be preferable to keeping them potted.

I rotted mine in pots but it was my fault. The pots were too big and we had a good amount of rain last winter. The pots stayed really wet and I was lazy about keeping them under cover. Now I know better.

I smile each time I glance out the back door and see my dancing girls. They are my favorite.

Bahai, my biggest heliconia is the lobster claw and if I plant it in the ground it will take over the world. It has alread split thru two huge pots. I have divided it and potted it in two larger pots and it has already filled them.

You want to send me some of that lobster claw? Sounds like a monster ;) BTW, can it handle your winters in AL? If yes, that gives me confidence that it will do well in Houston.

Heavens no, I don't even think it will survive wintering outdoors in South Alabama (Mobile). I have to keep it in the greenhouse. I don't think they can survive below 45 degrees but Bahai should be able to tell you more about them.