jrtalley43

What's up everyone:nanadrink

So I am interested in growing musa basjoo. I live in a semi-rural location in the midwest surrounded by farm fields, so windy conditions are very common. And particularly windy thunderstorms in summertime. I am wondering how successfully anyone else has been able to grow basjoo in these conditions?

I would plant on the east side of my house, being the most wind protected, but my east neighbor has shade trees that would limit direct sunlight to only a few hours a day at best. It is full sun to the west, but my neighbors house is about 20 to 30 feet from mine, so I'm not sure I'd get any wind screening from it or be in a wind tunnel. North and south side would definitely bare the full force of most winds.

How have your plants held up in the wind? I'm not concerned about shredded leaves but rather about broken leaves and pstems, would hate to have a plant that can hardly hold on to its leaves or consistently getting broken in half.

bushwack

mine have held up very good in very strong winds, you'll get a broken leaf every once in a while,, but @@it happens,, the leaves will shred but that is their defense against the winds.

stood out in my garage one day and watched a very strong wall cloud storm come through,, heard and seen the neighbors maple tree snapped off at the ground, (50 ft away) seen another neighbors tree get up rooted and fell on his house,,(100 ft away)and other trees had big limbs broken out,,( stood there and watched all this happen).about 15 seconds worth
all my Basjoo's were still standing,, only had about a total six leaves broken from my 15 plants,, right in the front yard about 50 -100 feet away from the trees that snapped,, no wind protection at all!!

there was very extensive tree damage all through the town,, the News said there was 70-80 mph wind sheers,,

and I believe it,, it was the strongest winds I have ever seen

I was very amazed and the neighbors could not believe the banana plants were still standing.
they said they were going to plant banana plants instead of trees,, lol
these were all 6-8 ft p stem plants
I know this sounds un likely , but I stood there and watched it.

my tall Orinoco's at the lake house have withstood very strong winds also with very little damage, my neighbor that watches them for me said she could not believe they did not get blown over

so in my experience the wind is not a issue!!!

pjkfarm

Agreed. We have had 40+ mph winds on an exposed hill - never broken or blown over, a few shredded leaves which "vanish" quickly as new ones pop out.

scottu

mine get pretty shredded leaves but still look good and thrive, they grow new leaves. just cover them up good in the winter

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Viva La Banana

jrtalley43

Thanks for the responses! Awesome, sounds like they are more wind hardy than I thought. Everywhere you read says to give them see wind protection, but I want sure how much of that was cosmetic vs structural.

Bushwack, do you overwinter all 15 basjoos in-ground?

Bonus question: how drought tolerant are they? Here in Indiana we usually have plenty of rain and water holding capacity in the soil, but we have dry spells like anywhere else. I am a golf course superintendent, and I have acres of thirsty turf that need my attention during those hot dry spells.

How well do they hold up? Again, I'm not worried about slowed growth or anything with that, just that they stay alive and somewhat healthy looking

cincinnana

Great choice of plants..

No matter where in the landscape you choose to plant this musa.....it is a great choice.

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pjkfarm

very drought resistant - we have one big mat planted on top of a root cellar, 100% sun, no wind protection as cellar created by mounding soil on an otherwise flat area. 2 feet of cover - no water ever and gets to 8-9 feet, with 5 stems 5-6' zone 6 b northern Virginia with very dry spells (lawns turn brown)
We will water this year to see if we get added height on this one.

jrtalley43

Wow, that's awesome. Thanks for all the responses. Sounds like this is one tough plant

bushwack

last year I dug all of them up except one mat of three plants, one was about a 6 ft p stem and other two about half that size, chopped them off about two inches from the ground, covered them with straw and leaves from all the plants, throwed a fishing bait cast net over them to keep all in place,, no tarp or water proof cover.

come spring , uncovered and they grew like crazy.

center bunch of closest pic, end of the year there was about 12 plants in just that bunch,, these things pup like crazy!!!



all the dry stored ones rotted and did not grow when planted,, good thing I had lots of back ups in pots in the house,, that's what all the other ones are,, (were)






so,,, this year I cut and covered all of them up with the exception of one bunch of Tall Orinoco's. (third bunch from the right of the last pic)

A well of a lot less digging for sure

we will see what happens this spring.

and these are the ones that took all the wind

jrtalley43

Wow, they look great! Well hopefully they all come back for you. I had thought about planting quite a few like that if I liked them, but wasn't sure if it would be too much work winterizing them all, wasn't sure if digging them up would be easier. Sounds like in-ground may be the way to go

pjkfarm

digging is easy as one does not save roots or keep dirt - just need a place to store them where i does not freeze and be sure not to put away wet - they will rot easily, especially if wet dirt left on them. Much harder to dig and put in pots or even simply move pots around.

bushwack

Its not easy if your knees are bone on bone which one of mine is, I probably wont even be able to dig a hole to plant my dry stored ones in. which at least two are getting rotten spots on the stems.

I dug them up, washed all the dirt off and separated the plants, stored in my garage with the root wad sitting on cardboard to absorb any moisture left, garage never gets below 40 degrees , and they always seem to go bad,,

sorry, don't mean to change the subject,, been meaning to start a thread on this

beam2050

maybe to many warm days that's killing them???

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npk of wood ash 0/1/3 to 0/3/7

npk of banana leaf ash 1.75/0.75/0.5

carpetfella

yeah i suppose if you just take good care of them during the winter theyll clean up nice in summer

bushwack

here is what I did to them


they were all covered up like these, but I couldn't resist to uncover some of them about a week ago



the ground temp was actually colder under the cover than the ground outside of the cover.
here is what was underneath when uncovered,,
they were cut off at near flush with the ground ,, so they either grew after cutting and covering them , or they started growing before uncovering



temps were running in the upper 40's to low 50's ,,for the lows at night, but now its been getting in the upper 30's,, i'm thinking as long as it doesn't get down to freezing they should be ok, but im going to wait to uncover the last three for about another week