Red Tiger seedlings
 

I started these from seed,back in may,germinated very fast,and now reaching the 3 to 4 ft mark,I plan on planting these next spring,and overwintering these in the ground.
Would like to hear from anyone from zone 7 to zone 5,that might have overwintered these in the ground.
Or anyone that has had some experience growing these musa sikki. bananas.
Tropicman

Re: Red Tiger seedlings
 

Hello.
I am in England and have been growing Musa Sikkimensis for about 5 years
now.
I have not been able to get "red tiger" seeds but I have some "red flash" seeds in my propagator at the moment (no luck yet) guess they are the same.
Basically Sikki is QUITE hardy, I have 3 large plants outside in British (so far quite mild ) Winter. They are heavily wrapped as I always do...some people say that they can overwinter unprotected but I just dont want to lose any of them.
They get HUGE and are truly beautiful with massive leaves and some (variable) markings. I have found that there are two pointers for success 1 to get your plant in as large a container as possible , my biggest one is in a 24 inch pot and 2 to feed often.
They pup readily and the pups grow away quite easily. Not as nice a plant as Basjjo in my view but well worth growing from seed.
Hope this little input helps.
Regards from England.

Re: Red Tiger seedlings
 

bananaman,

You ought to try growing helen's banana (helen's hybrid) as it's a winter hardy plant that produces edible fruit (albeit seeded). There is a seed supplier in the UK reachable over the web at www.rarepalmseeds.com that can assist.

Re: Red Tiger seedlings
 

Bananaman,
Does your ground ever freeze?
Compared to a Basjoo,does the leaves shred pretty easy in winds?
Here,my Basjoo leaves tend to melt in extreme heat ,high 90* heat.
And I can't feed them as much nitrogen as the other types of fertilizer,the leaves burn easy as well.