BB73

Hello everybody,

I have been writing a few posts here since I joined, but never introduced myself. I'm originally from Germany, but live in Greece now and became recently addicted to bananas. I was keeping my palm trees with quite good sucess over the last years, so I thought to add bananas to my collection and see how they'll do here in Greece.

After getting to know the different bananas better, you come across the Ae Ae's. So I got to have it and 2 days ago it arrived here in Greece from Hawaii. I repotted it into a slightly bigger pot now with a mix of 50/50 cactus and rhododendrone soil. I hope this will do it. Please check out the pic I took today. The small upper leaf started growing immediatly and has kept it's speed. I think the 6 day journey halfway around the world didn't harm the plant. I hope this will continue.

BTW: Do you see that little light green thing coming up next to the p-stem? It doesn't look like beeing roots, that came through the soil while (maybe) lying upside down within the shipping box. Could this be another sucker? I doubt it, but pls help me with your comments.

(The regular banana in the back is just for indicating the size of the pup)

damaclese

looking good its always exciting to get an AE AE don't over water it they tend to rot if its cold and wet i think it will do grate in Greece its pretty warm there protect it from the intense sun there they like 80% shade with only morning sun welcome to Bananas.org

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Bananaman88

Welcome to the org! That is most likely just a little weed seedling coming up from the potting soil-that happens sometime.

Clare_CA

Congratulations! I went a little AeAe crazy this summer myself and bought four of them. Two are gone now from rot, and two are hanging in there. I would like to "ditto" the not much water comment and add well-draining soil to the list of tips. I think your mix is good as long as the sand in the cactus mix doesn't remain wet for very long. I agree that you have a little weed coming up from the mix. Keep posting pictures as it grows!

BB73

Now, almost two weeks later my little royal hawaiian princess got her first leave.
I kept it inside the last week, because I wasn't home and the weather was quite cold. It got down to 8° C (46° F) outside.

djmb74

stress again the importance of not over watering it... let the soil completely dry out each time before watering then just give it a few sips not drenching the soil. Even as it grows water sparingly. The gentlemen I go my Ae Ae's from told me 85% of the people out there kill the pups from too much water. He told me once you pot a put not to water it for 3 to 4 weeks... then gradually give it a little water at a time...

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BB73

I didn't water it for about 8 days now and it's still a bit wet. I'll let it dry of course! Thanks for the advice!

BB73

Now, one month after my Ae Ae has arrived, the second leaf has emerged and the third one is already visible. My AeAe is growing like weed. But now i moved it inside, because it got quite cold outside and I don't want to risk anything in the first winter.

But I discovered some aphids, which I will treat with a "home made" pesticide. It's a nicotine brew. I added tobacco of 2 cigarettes and some water and boiled it for a few minutes and I'll spray this on the aphids and the rest of the plant. They should be gone after a few days and repeated treatment. Nicotine is harmless to the plant but highly toxic to a lot of pests.
Should be applied only outside and keep the plant away from kids and animals for a few days
I did this many years ago and it helped perfectly.

BB73

Just an update on how my 9 months old AeAe is doing in mediterrean climate:



I have to say, it's my fastest growing naner at the moment. It's putting out a leaf every week and leaf size is increasing "dramatically" once a new leaf has unfolded!

As you can see, it has a little sunburn. But it only gets direct sun from around 5:00 untill the sun dissapears behind the building across the street at around 8:30. But it might be still to much. When it get's bigger, it'll have more shade from the balcony above :-)

I water very little, but with more and bigger leaves and current temps I have gone up to every two days. But I think the soil mix is good and doesn't hold the water very long.

Thanks to all of you, who helped me to get this beauty to where it is now!

Jack Daw

Oh no, it's doing very badly, you should send it to me for treatment.

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Thnx to Marcel, Ante, Dr. Chiranjit Parmar and Francesco for the plants I've received.



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BB73

Well, I'm a bit sceptical, because I know how you convert buses into submarines


(I had to borrow this one, because it's really f***ing great!)

Jack Daw

LOL, love that pic. You know, the biggest problem was to equip the bus with torpedoes, but once that was accomplished, it was easy to put it in the water.

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Thnx to Marcel, Ante, Dr. Chiranjit Parmar and Francesco for the plants I've received.



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BB73

Here's an update on my AeAe as of today:

It suffered a bit from the August heat and strong wind at the beginning of this month, but it's still healthy. It's almost a year old.
I started to add pottasium nitrate once a week, so that there will be more green. This should make it stronger to survive the winter indoors, but maybe I don't add enough pot. nitrate. One teaspoon every week.

Jack Daw

How tall is it?

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Thnx to Marcel, Ante, Dr. Chiranjit Parmar and Francesco for the plants I've received.



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BB73

It's 70 cm at the p-stem and the newest leaf (pointing to the upper right corner of the picture) is 90 cm long and almost 40 cm wide.
It's not gaining a lot of height (about 2 -3 cm per new petiole), but the leaf size is increasing rapidly. In the last two months each new leaf was about 5 cm longer than the previous one.

Jack Daw

Curious. Mature adult Ae Aes are monsters. Very tall, very monstrous.

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Thnx to Marcel, Ante, Dr. Chiranjit Parmar and Francesco for the plants I've received.



Zeitgeist - Corporatocracy 101 (~2hrs)

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BB73

It's almost a year old and I kept it in a small pot indoors in the winter, where there was almost no growth. It had morning sun in a south east facing window. And I didn't fertilize at all in winter. I started in April with very little and increased it with increasing water demand.
It really took off after repotting in May (I guess) and then after another repotting in July.

Maybe the pot was to small at first?

In winter it didn't show a lot of stress, because the leaves looked all quite good - just slow growth. (Check out my photos in my gallery)
I water it very little and maybe I started with more intensive fertilizing too late? All that may result to the actual realtively small height.
I use a teaspoon of potassium nitrate each week. I also used 2 times a week regualar fertilizer NPK 14-6-24 with extra boron, manganese, iron, copper, molybdenum and zinc. Now I apply it only once a week.

MediaHound

Congratulations, it looks beautiful and has great coloration. Keeping it a bit greener as you are now doing, as you said, will help it some.

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Greenie

nice!

Kostas

Its a beauty Bernd! Well done!!!!!

You know its gonna need the ground soon though...

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