Happy New Year everyone! I joined in October with a brief intro....I'm from Vancouver Canada, zone 8 and a newbie to owning my first banana- a Musa Basjoo. I Love this forum and thanks again to a few members for their great advice when I joined, on how to overwinter in our area. After my post I ended up buying a 'banana jacket', retailing at $19 cdn. I pruned all the leaves and used them to mulch all around, covered the mother plant with this insulated black tube. I stuffed a couple of plastic grocery bags through the top to keep it dry inside, also keeping it ventilated. I left the very small pups exposed (the nursery said they'll be fine and come back in the spring).
.. having said that...
Vancouver experienced what was the most bizarre winter since 40 years ago, with unusual night time temps dropping to -20C in some areas, with snow at least 60cm high within 2 week period. No one was prepared for this so us banana lovers are pretty much bracing ourselves for the spring time to see if everything survived it all. Man, talk about anxiety!
Now a lot of the snow has been washed away by tons of rain and our temperatures have stabilized to a normal range. I had to stand the Basjoo back to its upright position after it flopped over from the storms. I think it's actually ok! Here is a picture of the banana after I covered it back in October, way before all the extreme temps and snowfall.
Stay warm and looking forward to meeting more of you!
From the Great North West Coast,
Heidi
