asacomm

Hi KJ,

The plant doesn't look like "Basjoo" with the following observation.
Basjoo has no waxy white powder like material on the pseudostem and
petioles. But seeing your photos, there are white power like materials on
the p-stem, so I don't think it Basjoo but other common banana of which
cold torelance is weaker than Basjoo.

Sting_stong

Yeah, turns out it's definitely not a basjoo. After doing some research, I'm quite certain that it's an Ice Cream, especially considering the waxy PS and red PS base. Does everyone concur?

Anyway, here are some updated photos since last fall when I originally posted my overwintering attempt...




So it was pretty frozen on the top, since that's where it was closest to the edge of the enclosure. The bottom looked totally fine, but I panicked and just chopped off the whole thing instead of just the frozen part. Oh well.

As I mentioned earlier, I had temperature sensors inside the box at 2 different locations. At ground level, it got to -10c near the outside edge of the box, but that was only for a short period of time when my clumsy housesitter got locked out and tried to get in my window, dislodging the box in the process. Grr. The typical temperature was around 3c.



It lives!
3 pups came up, with two of them reaching a similar size to the one from last season, and the other one was removed and replanted elsewhere. It later added on a couple more pups in August.

Which brings us to this fall:



I changed it up a bit this year, adding heating cable to one of the P-stems. I was initially thinking it would be an experiment to see how effective it was compared to the non-heated one, but I later threw in some christmas lights to supplement the heat cable. In early observations, the christmas lights are far more effective than anticipated. One string can take the temperature from 1c to 16c in about two hours. A temperature controller would have been a good idea. Where do you get them?
I later crammed the rest of it with leaves and more fibreglass insulation.

Consider yourselves updated!

Any thoughts on the species? Suggestions for future attempts?

Longwoods Tropicals

Good job over-wintering in Ottawa!!! Have you considered wrapping the Pstem with a narrow, heated seedling propagation mat? There are plenty of controllers available for them. Depending on the size of your Pstem you may need more than one.

Here is a link to some on eBay

Sting_stong

Thanks for the suggestion, I have one already and will consider it for next year. Too late for this year, as it's now sealed up tight. I wonder if these controllers would work for heating cable, or they're made specifically for the mats. Hm.

Sting_stong

An update on my Ice Cream for summer 2015.



[IMG][/IMG]

After opening up the box, I didn't have much hope for the pstem, but if there's one thing I learned, it's never give up until it's complete mush. And sure enough, a few weeks later I see a leaf spike emerge. Curiously, it came from the pstem that was only protected with fibreglass insulation, while the one that was protected with the heating cable gradually rotted away to nothing. Perhaps because it was closer to the house, it actually had a more stable temperature.

Growth was rapid this year, with 10-12 pups emerging throughout the summer, and the overall height surpassing last year's by a few feet.

[IMG][/IMG]

Overwintering this year will be done differently from the past, because I'm just not willing to build a big enough box to protect the whole pstem. Instead I'll dig it up and store it in a friend's cold storage room. I'll try and get some pictures once that happens.

How big does an IC get before it fruits? I don't think it'll be next summer, but it can't be that far off. But you never know, crazier things have happened.