planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

I talked to a guy up near Cleveland Ohio and he swears his basjoo come back every year with no mulch at all, but when he planted them, he planted them in a hole a foot deeper than they originally were growing. I thought that might have some merit, what do you all think? I've already planted one that way just to find out. Has anyone tried that? I put one out about two feet tall and planted it so a foot is sticking out of the ground yesterday.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

I haven't tried it, but in theory I guess the corm might be better insulated. Keep us updated..

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

In the "Growing Bananas" DVD it seems to be standard practice to do this with commercial vaieties in Hawaii. It shows them cutting off pups that look to be cut down to 3-4' tall and uncerimoniously tossing them in to holes dug about a foot deeper in the commercial plantaions. I wonder though if you'd have better luck starting with a bigger corm. Looking forward to your results. If this works it would kind of be a major breakthrough for all the cold weather growers.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

I personally wouldn't do it. Soil heats up/freezes and holds temperatures only to certain depths. Below that it's more or less constant temperature (colder in colder climates, warmer in hot climates). It would probably slow down your banana most of the time.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

Y'all talked about planting Orinocos deep two three weeks ago. A refresher might provide some insight.

http://www.bananas.org/f2/plant-orinocos-deep-8701.html

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

Jack in zone 5 like Sandy has as well as us the ground can freeze 4 ft (1.22m) depth if we have no snow cover to insulate. In normal winter it freezes about foot down or little more!

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

In here it's only about 25cm (9,9 inches), below that is a constant year-round temp of maybe 6 to 15°C. Depends on the time of the year. How deep would you have to put it then?

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

The one got from Pete buried top flush th soil level, but its only few feet from foundation.So it will have some heat from the house,plus buried in straw and leaves when winter gets here.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

sounds like a very good plan for the UK the ground only freezes down a few inches deep.

Jack, the ground temp does vary a fair bit, this effect lessens until you get down below about 10M deep when you will get to a steady 10/12C (in germany at least). I have a graph somewhere.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

I have heard this works well in zone 6 New Jersey.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

Hi
I am following infos about wintering of cold hardy banans in Polish forums and people there recomended planting banans deeper then they generally grow. Some guy said that he planted his banana about 30 cm deeper and it gave better results in wintering.
I also planted my basjoo deeper, I hope it helps the bulb survive the winter in better condition – but for results I have to wait till April I think.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

Thanx, I woud like to box off part of the garden specially for some tropical plants, but the problem is that my garden is actually "fully furnished" and every time I want to plant something new I must remove something.

Sev

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

Do you know if I could still dig up my young plant, make the pit deeper as mentioned and put it back deep without disturbing it's overwintering possibilities? There should be about two months before the growth season stops here.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

Some time last year Gabe posted a link to a study on the benefits to planting Musa Deeper i read it and from what i could determine if you plant the corm up to 6 inches deeper you can expect up to a 40% increase in the amount of fruit it will produce but this study said nothing about winter hardiness for related depth sorry kinda off subject but i thought you all would like to hear it i planted many of my Musa deeper this year and did receive a much lusher canopy i certainly think it helps with protecting the corm from heat related stress so I'm sure the revers would be true also

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

wolfebc

This is E. neglecta I think, and it hasn't spent winter in the ground yet. I had E. gunnii and till - 15C / 5F it was ok but when during 2 nights temperature decreased to -19C/ -2F it turned dark and died. I have 2 new E. gunnii in the garden but bigger and I will wrap them well this time.
Ps all my eucaliptuses are cultivated from the seeds, they are 1,5 year old.

ilmr

I join to the others! If you dig it up a this moment you will demage its roots and that will be the worst thing you can do for your plant before winter.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

Thanks wolfebc and seweryn. I am anyway protecting it with mulch and covering since this is z5. I'll skip the planting deep part this year then, I thought that I could've removed and reinserted quite easy without much damage to the roots since it's still a small plant, but I'm not sure if it would have enough time to get familiar with the new circumstances.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

Hi if you really afraid of it, you always can dig it up, put to the pot and take home for winter. I know it's nice to wintering it in the garden but if you take it home you will have bigger plant in next season.

Good Luck Sev

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

I will put the really small one inside, just want to make the best possible circumstances for the bigger one to survive the winter outside.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

I have heard it's best for Basjoos to be at least 3' to overwinter,so I agree,pot up.
I think the planting the corm/plant deeper sounds like a good idea,the soil at about 8" takes longer to reach a constant temp so,this may help your nanars come up at a safer time in spring as well?

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

I am zone 6 and have had musa basjoo's outside for 3 winters. Last year we had 3 days of 4*F. I put a big tomato cage made out of fencing wire around mine. I then put 2 bags cyprus mulch in each cage. This year I will have 3 cages. I moved some pups and gave some away. I wait untill it is going to frost and cut them off and mulch them. I then uncover them here in May.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

Success! I didn't even look at it until yesterday, but here it is! The leaves have mostly blown away with all the windy weather we had this spring, but all I did to this one is plant it a foot deeper, then cut it off to about a foot tall and dumped 3 wheelbarrow loads of leaves over the top of it in a big mound. This was a little easier than getting all the bags of leaves and piling the bags over it and it looked a little better too.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

Good job Sandy
I just dumped a trash can full of mulch on mine and covered with plastic sheeting.
More than one way-I think leaves are a great idea,
I had about 6" down over some ferns I planted and they looked exactly like they did when I covered them last fall.
I cheated a little bit and put mini umbrella g-houses over my basjoos to give them a head start-
not really needed with this warm spring we are having.
Here's what they looked like 4-15-10-next leaf will really move them into gear!

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

congrats Sandy, still too early for them over here, had a touch of ground frost last night, but hopefully that will be the last one.

Mind you as the UK is a no fly zone due to the Icelandic volcano at present the sky is an eerie clear blue with no high level cloud due to the lack of vapour trails, something I may never see again, it's like coming out of L.A.'s smog into clear fresh mountain air.:02:

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

It was like that here after 911

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

Very interesting thread. I'll keep that in mind when I go to plant my Dwarf Orinoco outside (soon, I hope).

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

We've had no commercial air traffic for 3 days and they've not confirmed when they'll restart. We normally have a sky full of vapour trails now it's noticeable that there is no cirrus type high level cloud. Makes you wonder what the heating effect of all that extra water vapour is on the planet.

Anyway, been gardening all day and no sign of any of the outside banana plants sprouting as yet, just as well I've got a polytunnel full to keep me company whilst I'm waiting :-)

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

But the very coolest part of this all is by just planting this banana a foot deeper, I didn't have to protect it nearly as much. This would solve the problem of picky neighborhood associations and etc, that wouldn't let some of my customers have something as "tacky" as bags of leaves with a tarp over them in the yard.
Also, what would happen if we took sikkimensis or even another one that wasn't even quite as hardy and planted it a foot deep, and then protected it like I usually mulch the basjoo with bags of leaves and a tarp over it? The possibilities are endless...lol...

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

I had such good luck with the first basjoo being planted deeper, that I did plant two more at the end of the driveway yesterday. I didn't want to look at the bags of leaves all winter. I'm just going to use the mower in the fall to mow leaves into the bed where they are, like I do with all my other perennials. I planted them a foot deep each like the other one.
By the way, the one I planted deeper is as big as the other ones that were mulched with bags of leaves.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

Great job Sandy!

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

I haven't had the best luck mulching basjoos but may give this a try with my sikkimensis "Daj Giant" this year and think I'm going to dig them up today and replant them.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

Winter preparations allready starts, hey. This year I plan to leave few plants in ground. Last winter I had sucsess with Basjoo (unprotected) but lost few Ensetes.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

biggest mistake some people make is they buy and plant small tissue cultured plants with absolutely no root ball (corm). My dad has been growing musa basjoo in East Lyme, CT for the past 5 years and it gets about 8 ft tall before the first hard freeze. He dumps a bunch of compost and dead leaves around the stem and by the end of May the stem is sprouting again. In Connecticut the soil freezes several inches if not a foot deep I can't help but think mixing hay/straw with the top layers of soil would be most beneficial. In regard to the idea of planting in a deeper hole, a good test would be to plant two corms 1 at a depth of 8-12 " and another in a hole 24 " with a little bit of stem above the soil line in early spring. The proof will be which on sprouts first on the following the spring.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

I thnk maybe 24" would be a bit too deep. I can't think of anything you plant that deep. but I'm game to try one. I just planted 13 or so a foot deep the other day to test it out some more. I could put another one 2 feet deep somewhere.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

I wonder if the banana would just form a corm close to the surface anyway no matter what the depth is. If it would root out of the pseudostem and form a corm at the normal location ...

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

I think it would take many years for it to reach back the normal depth again since pups tend to form right on the side and the corms might create a bowl effect.

I have some musa basjoos which are close to 4ft tall with pups now and I'm wondering is it ok to dig it and plant it deeper?

Of course I will try to make sure I don't break that many roots in the process and also add a good dose of root stimulator in the process, but it does make sense that burying it deeper should make over-wintering much easier resulting in a bigger plant starting out next year.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

I just transplanted 2 of my basjoos onto a spot that drains very well due to the slope it is planted so that it doesn't get too wet and end up rotting. I also planted them 1ft deeper than the soil line and tried to keep as many roots intact as possible, then used myccorhizal inuculation and root stimulator on them to reduce the transplant stress.

I hope they grow another 2-3ft before I cut off the leaves and cover them up for the winter. Here's the pictures.

[IMG][/IMG]

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

Why not find some scrape wood or buy some from a box store in there cheap pile. Make a hoop house with the wood and plastic painters tape,the thick ply. I did this back in Ohio zone 5-4 winters for a needle palm. It lived for years and seeded twice for me. It got fired one time in the winter when I was not around to remove the hoop house. We lived in a windy area and had to have it straped to the ground so had no vent opening for it.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

The plan here is to keep a bunch of pups in pots inside over winter and leave all the big boys in the ground... Going to find out how hardy this things are up here. Plan on protecting them with mulch and garbage cans or something. I'll also bury them in snow if when we get big storms (if)..

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

Having them nice and deep just helps them in the long run to over-winter since the ground doesn't freeze that far down especially if I put even more protection on top and tarp it to keep the psuedo-stems as dry as possible.

Both of the plants looked a bit droopy in the hot sun today as it got into the mid 80s with full sun, but they perked back up in the evening and look like they are well on their way to being situated in their new spots where they should resume growing in perhaps 3 days.


The root-less pups I took yesterday are still looking great since they are being kept very moist with not a lot of sun so they have enough time to grow a root system. I think they should succeed because juicy root which I use on other stuff too usually makes roots form very fast.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

After the transplant, these basjoos looked like they were about to die for a few days, but they have now resumed their normal growth with both of them growing another leaf since the transplant. They seem to grow just as well with their psuedo-stems 1ft deep.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

2 out of 3 of my musa basjoo plants have finally put out their first pup after being transplanted into the ground 1ft deeper and this one has a put 5 inches away from the mother plant. I hope they keep getting more distance so that the pups are not pressing up against the mother plant.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

Out of my 13 that I planted a foot deeper last year, now about 9 of them have came up so far. One looks like it was eaten by a mouse or something through the winter, and there's nothing left at all when I poked my hand in there. Just a hollow hole in the ground!
A couple of them are in the shade pretty much of the day, so maybe the ground isn't warm enough. There is firmness when you poke down in there with your finger about 5" deep. So they might come up. But a few of them are already up by as much as 6-8" tall! So that seems to be pretty good success I think. Considering I didn't even mulch them or cut them off or even do anything at all to them. I just left them to freeze and collapse upon themselves in a pile. The one I planted a foot deeper 2 years ago, it has two pups coming up in that spot instead of just one stem. So this year, I'm going to try sikkimensis planted a foot deeper. And just for fun I'm going to try an ensete maurelii. I'd like to try chinese yellow, but I don't think it would look cool if you couldn't see the trunk. That's the coolest part about them.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

Thanks for the update, Sandy. I'm definitely going to go this way in the future.

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

That's great news!! I wonder if it would be possible to save an edible kind if it worked that good with no protection? Has anyone tried to separate a pup off a plant buried a foot deeper? Seems like it might be tricky with the corm being so deep...

Re: planting basjoo a foot deeper?
 

I guess I jumped the gun. Some of them are up about 2 feet, but I decided I was going to replant the others that hadn't come up yet. I dug down in the first one with the post hole diggers, and didn't find anything at all left of the banana plant. So I replanted one, and went on to the next one and dug down and sure enough, it was there. So I planted another one right next to it just in case. It was still 6" down, but that one is in a lot of shade and the ground was pretty cool and wet there too. So I went to the next one and it was down about 10", but with a nice green sprout, so was the 4th one. So once they come up I'll have 12/13. Pretty good for zone 5 huh?