Hi, I'm new to growing bananas, but I've grown a lot of other plants before.
So I've managed to almost kill my banana plant with root rot twice now. First I overwatered it bc it was really hot this summer and I misjudged water retention capacity of the coconut sponge.
After transplanting to new soil, it kind of recovered until the Estonian winter darkness hit. It seems I didn't clean off enough of the root rot, it had taken over almost all of the pot.
Only about 5cm of root per plant was salvageable, but the central round part(rhizome?) is solid.
Since the plant is halfway dead and will likely not recover from another overwatering, I decided to build a small hydroponics rig filled with expanded clay pebbles for it. My reasoning was that this way the plant will get all the air and moisture it needs for its roots and if needed I could reduce the moisture in the pot within hours by turning off the pump.
After 3 days, I've already noticed a couple of small white roots, each about 2mm in length, but I couldn't get a nice picture of those.
Right now I'm circulating pure water through the pot and will add a light nutrient solution only after I've seen some improvement. Also, excuse the trashy system, it was put together from random things I found in my cupboard. If this works out, I'll build something nicer.
I haven't seen anything similar attempted yet, so let me know what you think how it will turn out and if there is anything I could do to increase their chances of survival.
