Hello all!
I've been lurking here for a few weeks, learning what I could before starting to plant my first bananas.
Some history: My wife and I bought a house that desperately needed a backyard makeover. Our house is sitting up higher than the rest of the yard, so everything slopes away from the house which is great for drainage but bad for just walking around... So the first step was to build some decks to level out the areas around the pool, and just outside the back door. (two different elevations) We got the decks installed last summer, so this spring the name of the game has been plants and landscaping.
Since our house sits so high relative to our fence, we don't have a lot of privacy. I started looking into fast growing plants to number one, get us some privacy, and two, just to give us a nice environment to enjoy. I started out looking into bamboo, then quickly decided against that. That lead me to bananas which i had never considered before. That, of course, led me to this site.
After much research, I decided to plant primarily Basjoo. I'm no green thumb, and frankly never really been into planting things. So I figured I should go with a known hardy variety, because I'm not going to dig them up over winter. I am in Zone 8a so this should not be a problem.
I later decided I might want a few fruiting varieties on the off chance we have a mild enough winter and they managed to fruit. I had my eye on getting some Ice Creams, but the vendor I was ordering the Basjoos from was sold out. Well I got lucky and this Saturday I was at Lowes buying too many plants and came across these lovely ice creams 50% off. ($9.50 each) I could n't pass them up, one of them already had a pup!
Anyway, my Basjoos arrived yesterday, and I got them all (temporarily) potted up.
They will eventually go into the ground into harsh direct sunlight all day along my back fence that runs east/west. So I potted them up to get them acclimated to full sun. I placed them all on the eastside of my house between the house and fence, so they should only get a couple hours of direct sunlight:
I was planning to move them to the west side to get a couple more hours of direct sun, after a few days, then on to full sun after a week or so... I potted them in a 50/50 mix of topsoil and compost manure, and added a dash of organic bone meal per pot.
If anyone has any tips on sun acclimation, (or anything for that matter, I'm a total NOOB!) I would welcome them!