Strelitzea juncea can be grown pretty quickly from seed if you can't find a source for plants.

I got some Strelitzea juncea seed from a website in Germany. The seed had a very high germination rate. The seeds were planted in the spring and the seedlings are already about 4 or 5 inches tall.

BTW they don't develop the spear-like leaves until they are a few years old. Right now the seedlings look identical to S. reginea seedlings.

Here is a link that might be useful: Strelitzea juncea seed website

Gardino's nursery in Florida has 3 gal. pots of Juncea. Website is rareflora.com

Steve

I purchased my Mussaendas at HD both last summer and this summer. They are both doing very well.

For the Strelitzia juncea, have your local retail nursery order you one from San Marcos Growers in Santa Barbara, available as 15 gallon plants, or perhaps from Rancho Soledad Nursery in San Diego County. I suspect that you should be able to find this at better retail nurseries in Southern California as well, as it is not that rare anymore, even if it is much slower growing than S. reginae.

I don't know about the other plant, is it really even hardy outdoors outside zone 11 conditions?

As to the seedling form of S. juncea, can you tell me how long it takes to revert to the reed-like foliage? I have seedling grown plants from Silverhill that are purported to be S. juncea, but after almost 3 years of growth, they show no signs of reverting, and I think they were mislabeled seed...

mussaenda will not grow here,it dies at 50!!