I'm in the midst of trialing a lot of supposedly cold-hardier Heliconias in our bottom-of-9a climate, and today happened to glance toward one of my Heliconia latispatha 'Distans' and to my complete surprise there is a bloom emerging! This plant was received as a rhizome from Puerto Rico in April, potted in roughly 60/40 sand/Miracle-Gro Potting Soil mix in hot sun, began sprouting and growing the first week of May, and went in the ground about a month ago in a protected south-facing spot with about 4-5 hours of fairly intense sun per day.
So it is exactly four months for this plant from rhizome to flower. I do still have another plant in a shadier bed that hasn't bloomed yet but I'll keep my eye on it...but at least this shows the plant is fully capable of going from a fairly small rhizome to a plant 2-3 feet tall with lots of pups now emerging from the soil, up to 9" away from the center of the mat. That makes it just about a month slower to flower than the quickest-blooming specimens of psittacorum 'Andromeda' I sprouted simultaneously with these 'Distans' rhizomes (though about half of the 'Andromeda' plants have yet to flower). And may I say much more spectacular in flower than any psittacorum as well!
Now the test will be to see if the rhizomes can survive the winter...perhaps someone else here can weigh in with their experiences in the Gulf-states 9a belt with this or any other Heliconia, and whether they've been successfully overwintered and bloomed. Here are pix from today of the plant and its just-emerging inflorescence:
