Cut them back to the ground, new plants will rise up from the underground rhizome. Bird of Paradise is a tough plant to make look good. The wind rips the leaves to shreds and the dead flowers need to come off.

You don't say where you are, or what zone. There are many possibilities but the first one that comes to mind is too much water. BOPs don't like a lot of once they are established. If all the others look good, and you haven't had any freezes, that's all I can think of. I agree to cut it down to the ground, stop watering it and let it come back up. They really are tough plants.

We are in Central Florida in the Daytona Beach area so I think that's zone 9. We did have a few freezes this winter. It is planted in an area where the sprinkler hits it more than the others too. Now to convince my husband to let me cut it back. He hates pruning anything.

Dirty, is this a plant that would handle life in a large container-something like a 1/2 whiskey barrel-well? That might be one way to get it the drainage and near-drougthiness it appears to favor. Plus, put it up closer to the person who has to maintain it, for a while anyway!

Tom, no, they can get up to 20 feet tall and form huge clumps. The pups are hard to remove from around them. Besides, they need shade or the leaves look horrible, which is one of the main problems with BOPs. If you give them enough sun to bloom, the leaves look crappy. If you put them in shade, you have pretty leaves and no flowers.

Do you need something tall for the barrel? Do you want it to bloom? I'd go with something native. Chicasaw plum is drought resistant and is very pretty when it blooms, and you get plums!

Yeah, if you don't know what they are, Tom, a lot of people mistake them for Traveler's Palm. They are big.

Oh I've seen BOP. But it was just what I described-a "stock plant" in a greenhouse, in a large old pot, probably half grown right out of that pot......never moved, just allowed to produce blooms for the florists. So yeah, I know what they are. But obviously, in ambient Florida conditions, what I asked about would not work for long!

White bird is a LOT bigger than regular BOP, Tom.

OK, that's what I was beginning to imagine to be the case. That old thing back in the greenhouse from many moons ago was the "regular" blue and orange jobby.

I have my regular color BOP plant in a 20 gallon container. All my tropicals are in containers so I can put them in the greenhouse for the cold months and because we will probably be moving in a few years and I plan to take these plants with me. Also this way during the really hot summer weather I move it under a live oak. It still gets lots of sun but not the mid day sun.

It blooms great but yes, the leaves look kind of crappy.