varig8

Hello All;
Well, you certainly cannot complain about all the help and concern one receives at this site! Kudos to all of you. After reading through all these posts, I have found I am in agreement with the most simple and common sensed comments posted by MM4Birds. I have been growing rare tropicals for over 30 years, and every banana corm, or small banana plant I lost came from ONE reason--TOO MUCH WATER during the re-establishment of new roots. All else seems irrelevant in comparison. You just wouldnt think that a little extra water would hurt so much!! I lived in the Caribbean for about 15 years and watched the banana growers just hack off pups, cut the leaves and stalks to the top of the corms, scrape the old roots off, and throw them in a truck like potatos! Then they just dug a hole, planted them with no water, and guess what? Perfectly growing rows of bananas. I do admit that we should all take more care and concern when growing them inside and potted though! And being RARE and expensive variegates, well, goes without saying. Harvey has been in contact with me from day one, and has taken into consideration the majority of my suggestions and the new photos of all those white new roots is fantastic! (I would still cut off those older leaves!) Re-establishing these slower growing variegates during the winter months can be problematic due to the obvious environmental conditions. WATER LIGHT WARMTH. Most important in that order in my book as far as banana corms go! Here in "Sunny" Florida it has been down in the low 40's and 50's for the past month or so. All my plants are outside, even one similar sized aurea variegated "Wild Asian Banana" (Hate these local names!) which I received from Thailand about 6 weeks ago. I cut off all the leaves right away except the newest which I cut horizontally in half. All the roots were scraped off on the similar sized corm as Harveys. I dug a hole,(in full sun), watered it ONCE when I planted, and now it looks THE SAME. No dying back, an erect, functioning "half" leaf, and slowly rooting out. No rain here to speak of for months in Miami either! Fussing too much with the 'babies' oftentimes spell death for them! I know from experience early on in this hobby after loosing hundreds and hundreds of $ rooting out AeAe pups and other banana corms over the years. I lost my first 6 AeAe in the Caribbean from this! ($700+!). I thought I was going to die! It is MUCH better to re-establish them DRYER than WET. Might be slower, but they LIVE! If you pot them up in 100% perlite it proves better. You really need a very well drained mix to start them off! After they've rooted out in Perlite they can be moved into a soil based mix. It may interest you to know that banana corms can also be dried and stored for long periods of time before planting! Keep me posted Harvey!
Steven