nealnick5

George, USDA zones 7b is what I get from this website https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/pla...ting-zones.htm. How do you normally overwinter yours? I have had success here chopping to 1ft-1.5 feet pseudo. I'll do 2.5 or 3 foot pseudos this year. I used the stems and leaves first from the chopped nanas, compacting them amongst the pseudos, then liberal amounts of straw, and finally covering the whole bunches with black plastic wrap. This wrap was $50 from Home Depot.. pretty sure it's called "moisture barrier" or something. I got the "heavy duty" one. I got the thickest possible.. 1000sqft for $50. I put this over the 18 bunches (tightly) and used large staples to hold the plastic down. I also used bricks on several sides of the wrap for further hold (from wind). I did this to all 18 bunches of about 9 bananas total per bunch, ranging from new pups to the old pseudos. The wrap wasn't wide enough for the largest bunches, so I used 2 strips per large bunch (5ft width and probably 6 ft. length) and combined the 2 using the staples and bricks. I think the plastic moisture barrier wrap was 200 feet of 5ft (width)... = 1000 sqft.

Essentially, the plastic wrap traps in heat from the sun, as black color draws the most heat. The straw insulates. Finally, the leaves and pseudos (cut from the 1.5ft remaining pseudos) decompose all winter, since they are removed from the main plants and decompose all winter, resulting in exothermic reactions (decomposition provides heat). So, the chopped leaves and pseudos provide decompositional heat, with straw on top to keep the frost from penetrating everything, and finally the thick plastic wrap keeps everything from feeling frost and also from the 1.5ft cut pseudos from getting wet. I see it like this: when you chop a pseudo and it gets wet from rain, it slowly starts decomposing. But, if you manage to keep them dry, they will "diffuse" much more slowly. Here is the link to the thread where I did this in Zone "7b" (VA on the Rappahannock River) Basjoo's fruiting before frost in 20-30 days

Hope this helps. This is only my second year overwintering, but i saved 100% of large or medium pseudos this way, and only lost a few small pups on the edges of the wrap.

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Growing: Ensete ventricosum 'maurelli', Musa balbisiana 'Thai Black', bordelon, basjoo, Dwarf Cavendish, Dwarf Orinoco, itinerans var. itinerans, lasiocarpa, orinoco (tall), saba, sikkimensis 'Red Tiger', TaNee, zebrina, VDN (green), 1000 fingers, praying hands, ornata purple, veluntina, french red, super dwarf cavendish, dwarf iholena, red iholena, balbisiana (yellow), kru, mananzo, zebrina var. gran nain.