em_burk

Hi all,
I'm in Graham County, Arizona, and I've landscaped part of my yard to be more like the rainforest than the desert...in theory. Among many non-banana plants, this year I've put in a Musa Basjoo and a Musa dwarf Orinoco, and I'm hoping they'll survive my lack of experience!

I'm encouraged by the number of other Arizona users on this site; 103 degrees seems to stress my plants a bit.

Red Sky

Welcome!

Yes the heat can stress them. Very heavy mulching will help keep roots cool and you will have to watch carefully to makes sure they are getting enough water since their relatively large leaves can transpire more than the foliage we are more used to. There's a reason most desert plants have tiny leaves! I've found that banana plants will get dead dry margins in their leaves during extreme heat rather than just losing turgor pressure like other plants. The damage can happen so quickly! Good thing they grow fast, new leaves will replace the damaged ones. Of course potted plants suffer worse in the heat than those planted in the earth.

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kubali

Welcome aboard,
pull up a chair and have some fun learning.

em_burk

Thanks for the input! My basjoo is doing alright although it does droop a little during the days, it keeps putting out new leaves and has grown almost a foot since April, but my orinoco is the same size as when I got it, and has only put out one set of leaves, to replace the ones that died during transplant shock.

That's actually part of what motivated me to join -- the orinoco leaves are a yellow green with some brown spots on the edges, and the internet tells me it can be both overwatering or underwatering. Perhaps this is better posted to another section of the forum?

I dug into the mulch around it and found it to be quite moist even on the hottest days, leading me to assume overwatering, so I reduced it to getting less water than the basjoo. But after about two weeks of less water, the plant has not changed in appearance. So maybe not enough water? Both are planted in the ground, in full sun, with regular deep watering every other day plus occasional heavy monsoon rains. Our AZ summer high temps are between 95-105.

This is the Orinoco:

Snarkie

Welcome to the Banana Express.

Graham County, wow; that's in the middle of nowhere. I cut through there one time from Mesa to Lordsburg; looked shorter on the map, LOL. I remember stopping at a Subway in a little town somewhere; could that have been Safford?

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Doug (D.A. Hänks) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2955582/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1


The Only Eastern Redwood Forest in America




"Nuke my 'nanners, will you?!"

Red Sky

From your photo the mulch looks moist. They need water but don't like wet feet. You may need to ease up on the water and if the location tends to collect too much water try adding some sand to the mix. I like lava sand for the extra minerals.

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