Re: question on winterizing basjoo
 

mudcat,
do you cover the plants with tarps or any thing after you mulch them and cut them down?

Re: question on winterizing basjoo
 

Thats very interesting. I wonder if its the shock of replanting in the spring? I noticed my Basjoo's this spring sat for a good month and did nothing or almost nothing, before they started going. The weather was perfect or near perfect for most of it???

Can you refrigerate a corm?

Re: question on winterizing basjoo
 

Iwabirds,
All I do is put about 8in of mulch over and around my mat after I cut them down. Has worked for a few years now. I'm hoping to try the cage method on one mat this year and try for a couple of more feet.

Frank,
Not to sure why I had the results that I did but I know that plant will stay in the ground this year! I did try to overwinter one bareroot in my basement. I would definitely not suggest that way. My p-stem looked like a dry corn stalk however the corm did survive. As for refrigerating a corm, no idea how it would work.

Re: question on winterizing basjoo
 

mudcat,
how far down (inches) do you cut them?

Re: question on winterizing basjoo
 

Here is the bananas in question for me...

Re: question on winterizing basjoo
 

Iwabirds,
I cut them to ground level. They have made it to 6ft of p-stem. I've never tried leaving some p-stem.

Re: question on winterizing basjoo
 

Fiberglass insulation, if it gets wet, will stay wet for a long time and would tend to rot a Pstem...unless you put the insulation in a plastic sleeve first to keep out the moisture.

Re: question on winterizing basjoo
 

thats a good point and if I try it, I will try to keep them dry.

The second part of my question pertained to root cellars. Does anyone here know if that would be a good way to store other varieties?

Thanks-:2201:

Re: question on winterizing basjoo
 

I'm reading about grape growing and came across this piece of info.

They use a method that allows them to keep the vine close to the ground and then they cover it for winter. 35F warmer under the mulch, not bad?

Re: question on winterizing basjoo
 

I think our weather here is similar to yours. We are in a little microclimate of Indiana that doesn't get a lot of snow in the winter always, but when the cold weather comes, it can get to -20 degrees. Sometimes with no snow cover at all! So it kills lots of things.
I lost several basjoo last winter, ones that were two years old mostly. I think the reason is this, right after we covered the bananas, it got really warm, unusually so, and stayed that way on and off until December. With lots of rain. My fish pond overflowed on a couple of them. I didn't uncover mine, but I think now that I should have. I think that caused them to rot. Then after December, it got unusually cold in January and February with not hardly any snowfall at all. Then it got really warm in March, up to around 60-70 degrees a few times and things started to grow and leaf out, and so then it snowed about 18",that melted and then it got back down to -5 in early April with no snow. That did in lots of things. No peaches, no apples, no pears, cherries, in this area at all this year.

This year, I'm thinking of mulching a couple of them a little differently to see how it works, I'm thinking circling around the cut off stem with the large trash bags of leaves, leaving a hole in the middle about three feet across with the stem in the center of the hole, then filling the hole with loose unbagged leaves, then fastening a tarp across the top of the whole thing to help shed excess water. I'm thinking that I might need some kind of a short teepee in the center over the cut off pseudostem. Like one made of bamboo or sticks or etc, maybe with a tin can over the top to keep it from poking through the tarp, to keep the leaves from compacting around the pseudostem and maintaining more air spaces over winter. I don't think it would take a lot of time to do that around a couple of clumps of basjoo, and it would work well around a larger clump because I could vary the size of the circle to include all the pups....
Whatcha think?

Re: question on winterizing basjoo
 

Hi! Has anyone here heard of winterizing a banana tree with bubble wrap? I read it online a while ago. I think it was in the Northwest Palms website. Someone in Canada used bubble-wrap to completely wrap his basjoo for winter. He claims that it works. He said you don't need to dig out the banana tree or cut the pseudostem...just the leaves. I wonder if this works with other bananas like Ice Cream, Misi luki, Orinocos...etc.:2740:

Found the website: http://www.cloudforest.com/northwest/forum/17302.html

Re: question on winterizing basjoo
 

I guess I would narrow it down to three simple rules for overwintering basjoos:

1. Keep them well insulated Build as wide and tall structure as you can afford. Hay is tried and tested, and is what lets' me overwinter bananas in Norway. Here, I use a structure of about 1 meter (>3 feet) in diameter.
2. Keep the clump dry Cover the structure with something that keeps the hay/insulation dry. A sheet of plastic tied around shoulc be sufficient.
3. Dont' uncover before stable spring weather has arrived. Insulation works both ways. If you have a day in February with 60degrees F, don't uncover the structure. Inside it will be nice and cold. Don't wake the sleeping bear! ;-)
:coldbanana:

Re: question on winterizing basjoo
 

Still not sure what i'm doing. I'm scared of a -25F winter killing my precious! I still think i'm going to dig and store the corm in the basement or just pot them all up and bring them inside. Once i get a nice collection i would be more apt to just let them be outside. I really want to redo where they are situated anyways.

Mrbungalow-

Quite a climate you live in. A little digging from past winter shows you at a low of 15F (-9C) on 02/11. The warmest temp was 78F? this summer. Wow. I suppose you are constantly blasted by the north Atlantic sitting right there on the coast. Actually a pretty temperate place to live...although you currently sit @ 46F! (heck i'm going down to 53F tonite after a high of 81F).

Re: question on winterizing basjoo
 

Frank: I understand the dilemma a little too well. As I stated earlier I would discourage anyone trying to store the corm of Musa basjoo or other temperate species in the basement. The basement of a house is relatively warm. Even at 50 degrees the Basjoo will be fit for fight and want to start growing.

I also understand your concern with the arctic blasts and prolonged subfreezing temperatures. But if you insulate and mulch enough, the inside of your wrapped structure will absorb heat/radiation from the earth and stay at about 32 degrees F or just above, wich is perfect for musa basjoo. I am sure a physics-teacher can explain the U-values of insulation better than me! If you really want to be sure they don't freeze, wrap heating-cables around the trunks, set to be turned on at a few degres above freezing.

I am not guaranteeing your basjoo will survive outside, but I think it's your best bet. I wouldn't be saying all this if I didn't think they would make it. I have heard of and seen examples of success in Chicago and Canada. Also, this is your only chance to get a truly large plant next summer. If you have a pup or two, why don't you take these inside as insurance?

And yes, the climate here is pretty temperate. I think Bergen is the warmest place in the world at this latitude (we are on the same latitude as the south tip of Greenland and Alaska). Still, it's no tropical paradise since it rains like there's no tomorrow here. Apart from Bananas, Windmill-palms, monkey puzzles, Gunnera manicata, and Cordylines thrive here. Bergen is also known as the Rhododendron capitol in Scandinavia.
We are not so battered by the Atlantic as you may think, that's because the coastline is uneven and has many islands, fjords, and mountains wich take the worst beating. Here today there's no wind but plenty of rain!

Re: question on winterizing basjoo
 

I've got 3 Basjoo pups (in pots, coming inside this winter), and as long as they don't DIE! i'll leave atleast one corm in the ground :) We have plenty of time, at least 4-6 weeks before the first frost...

Re: question on winterizing basjoo
 

I haven't had any luck in preserving any height on mine. One year one of them did overwinter right to the stump height I'd cut though, it just pushed right out of the trunk just like it had just been cut off a few days ago. But that was only one year, and apparently a mild winter.
Usually I cut mine down low to around 12-18 inches and pile the bags of leaves around and over the top of the stem.
I haven't tried making a cage--because it probably wouldn't work here, and I'm way too busy in the fall anyway.
We get low temps to -21 or -22 every three or four years. Just often enough that you can't keep nice things. When we get that, it seems it always happens when we have no snow, or just about 1/2 inch that doesn't help at all.

Re: question on winterizing basjoo
 

First cold blast of the season coming in the next week. Some spots could go into the 30's. I'm going to be covering my SDC, but i think the Basjoo's should be OK.

I'm wondering if piling snow (when it does fall) all around the banana area (deep) would help insulate? I think if you mounded it good, it would create a "banana igloo" ? Tempting.

Re: question on winterizing basjoo
 

I think you are wrong. Go for the cage! Utilize hay instead of leaves, and a raincover to keep it dry. This will do wonders for you. Building such a structure will only take an hour of your time, at most.

Erlend

Re: question on winterizing basjoo
 

I protected mine with a straw cage and covered with a plastic tarp, the stems were cut back to 3 feet. My low last winter was about 5 degrees. I had enough protection that they grew all winter, except for about 2-3 weeks when we had a ice storm. I had to lift the tarp and cut off the new growth every couple of weeks. You can see they are growing in March. The last photos were taken in May. That is a 6ft fence behind them. I plan to protect all of my bananas the same way this winter. My other album has photos from August.
You can see the photos at http://good-times.webshots.com/album/559134962MKwWKF:coldbanana:

Re: question on winterizing basjoo
 

Thanks for the info. I'm going to make a cage for a few of them and see what it will accomplish height-wise in the spring. It doesn't look that hard. You guys ever have problems with mice or voles in those cages? We seem to have a lot of them because of the cornfield out back.

I think the hardest part around here will be keeping a tarp on top of it. We have to run inflation on our greenhouses constantly because of the wind. Without it, we can't even keep plastic on top. Seven to ten times each spring and again in the fall we get 50 mile per hour winds, and with a big open field and highway behind our property there's no chance of stopping or slowing that wind.

I would think that if you used a good cover like a cage or bags of leaves, and then piled snow over the top of it, you would get even better protection with snow being the insulator that it is.

Every time it snows, I shovel snow all around the bottom edges of the greenhouse to help insulate, too. I don't know if it really helps all that much, but it makes me feel better! Besides I miss being outside in the winter, since I spend 6-8 hours outdoors at least the rest of the time.