Strelitzia juncea

Sal, I'm pretty sure dark green means soft grown.
It will need hardening off this summer.

 

I picked the greener one of the two i had a choice of and it had more flower stalks but she did say it needed hardening of so i will fetch it back in if temps are going to drop next week

 

I`m pretty sure that the small leaves and the gray color is something to do with hard condition , like extremely hot and dry .

 

Pete - I have just been having a closer look at the leaves on mine. You are quite right they are really thick tough leaves and they look as though they are built to last for many years.

 

It would be interesting to put a tag on a new leaf, then seeing how many years before a flower forms in axil, and how long the leaf takes to die.

 

Pete - I have never had a flowering Strelitzia. Where exactly do the flower shoots come from. Is it from every leaf axil? and do you just get one flower per axil? Do you also get flowers from the outside axils which are younger, or just the central ones?