musa_monkey

Very nice James, I really like this plant, they colour up well and are obviously different to a Red Tiger when you put them side by side.
I will over winter mine indoors this year.

It survived the high winds we had remarkably well when a lot of my basjoos shredded their leaves so it should be interesting to see how robust it is when it matures.

jmoore

Wakey wakey sikkimensis gigantea



This has spent 4 months in my loft, seems to have done OK.

tony palmer

Hi James,
I have a couple of questions… where any of your gigantea normal green or are they all that dark variegated form, also has your gigantea produced any pups yet? The one I have seems reluctant too; the P-stem is about 4ft.





Tony

Dalmatiansoap

Mine lost all that red color, its just green now, second year in the ground, no protection, lost all leaves due to wind, one pup last year, none this Spring. Slow grower.

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jmoore

Hi Tony they have all been quite red, I only have one now though. It's outside in a pot not growing very quickly due to the rubbish weather. Yours is much bigger than mine. No pups yet no

tony palmer

Thanks for your replies guys.. have any of you found any info on were the Gigantea seed was collected or a description of the plant in the wild, I’ve had a look on the net but not had any luck!
It looks like Botanist’s may not have done any work on the species Musa sikkimensis and its possible variants! I suspect there are at least a few of them, like the have found with Itinerans, Yunnanensis and Basjoo.

After growing various Sikkimensis… Darjeeling Giant, Red Tiger, Hookerii, and seed offered by Phil Markey of Sikkimensis collected in Myanmar, it’s obvious to me the variants exist and its possible Gigantea is another of them.. NOT very scientific but we don’t have much info to go on.

Ante, you said Gigantea survived planted out, can you tell us what your winter low was!


Tony

jmoore

Hi Tony

I don't know anything about where it was harvested, unfortunately. I've only ever seen the seed sold by Europalms so it's possible that the guy who owns europalms knows (James I think his name is).

My suspicions are that it is a hybrid like Darjeeling Giant and Helen's Hybrid. I only base this on the fact that I got a double sprout once.

There is another variant - 'fire' - Marcus Senger has previously sold seed.

I'm not sure there is much difference between sikkimensis, 'red tiger', Manipur, 'red flash', other than which part of West Bengal the seeds were collected.

It would be interesting to see them all growing side by side, or indeed flowering side by side, but I don't think that will ever happen.

Dalmatiansoap

Didnt hit the freezing temperatures this year but there was a decent time with temp. didnt get more than 5C. There was some frost on it last year and it was is worse location but it recovered great.

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tony palmer

Well, I’ve planted it out guys… my average winter low is around -6c to -8c so it will be interesting to see if it survives the winter!
I have planted the P-stem a little deeper to give the corm some protection from the frost but that’s all the protection it will get.



Tony

jmoore

[IMG][/IMG]

This is my Sikkimensis 'Gigantea' after the long and cold spring, still looking very red and just starting to push 2 pups