nealnick5

My friend "Iowa" had some basjoo I sent him this past winter. They got blasts of -40F and returned this spring. My winterization method works wonders. Mine actually grew when it was under 32 out on a sunny day they were so warm. My link is somewhere above. It's fairly cheap and works well!!!!

About the red banana.. You can dig it up, but will probably have to divide the corms when you dig it up. I got a basjoo corm/pups I HAD to cut.. the whole mass was almost 200 lbs. But it's worth the work.. better than losing your red banana to the cold! And to clarify, I dug the nana up this spring. I left all my basjoos in the ground in zone 7! Try to find out what kind of red banana it is. Could be sikkimensis 'red tiger'.. or borledon. Because usually zebrina and siam ruby get about 8 ft tall only. But that's not always the case! Show a pic of it!

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Growing: Ensete ventricosum 'maurelli', Musa balbisiana 'Thai Black', bordelon, basjoo, Dwarf Cavendish, Dwarf Orinoco, itinerans var. itinerans, lasiocarpa, orinoco (tall), saba, sikkimensis 'Red Tiger', TaNee, zebrina, VDN (green), 1000 fingers, praying hands, ornata purple, veluntina, french red, super dwarf cavendish, dwarf iholena, red iholena, balbisiana (yellow), kru, mananzo, zebrina var. gran nain.

Bob

I bet it flowers this year for you. I used to bring many non hardy large varieties in for the winter by simply whacking the psuedostem in half. Then you can let them go dormant in a cool spot or if you're overwintering in a greenhouse it will start growing a new leaf almost immediately.

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George Webster

I should have answered much sooner. It got quite warm in April so I uncovered.

I cut off in small increments a foot of the old pstem to find living tissue. It begin growing putting out full undamaged leaves. Also pups came up around it.

two weeks later the other pstems and pups broke ground. those that were covered are about tw
o feet taller than the rest of the mat.

I only remove pups on the west side of the mat to keep them out of the neighbors yard. So I have a rather thick dense mat.

George.

Denverian

I'm wondering if it will flower this year. I had one in SoCal that grew huge for 2 or 3 years and then it put out a huge (like the size of my head!) black flower! And then it died, which is what I guess it's supposed to do. More grew around the base after that.

Denverian

I haven't taken any pictures yet. I figured I'd let it grow for a while and show something no one would ever expect to see in Denver!

I've learned that the whole neighborhood loves my crazy banana tree lol! It makes it easy to give directions to my house too.