Steve in France

Hi all , I just added a bunch of Ensete pics to my Gallery if anyone wants a look.
All the Best
Steve
Banana Gallery - Steve in France Gallery

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Dean W.

Steve, they look great!

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dablo93

they look very healthy!
one question: why is everything growing in pots?

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Steve in France

We are potted here because we rent this place so there are no flower beds to be used in the front and I cannot make any. But, the Landlord just cut down the trees in the back , so from total shade we now have total Sun. I can now use the backyard and the beds there plus make some more. Next year I'll have a lot of stuff in the ground but it's not worth planting stuff in the ground this late in the season . I'll be storing plants as soon as there is the first sign of frost in Nov.
So for the moment it's still pot City out front.
I'll start fixing up the back in Sept when the kids are back in School and I have a few hours to work out there.
Later
Steve

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Tropicallvr

Very nice specimens Steve.
Your two superbums show alot of differences at that size.

bigdog

They look really nice, Steve. Is that Ensete glaucum the one you got from me last year? Did the E. ventricosum make it? I remember you saying that you lost a bunch of stuff. The E. superbums look great.

tophersmith

Steve,

They look great, got and Ensete glaucum or superbum seeds you can spare?

Steve in France

The two Ensete Superbum are very different it's true , so different one wonders why they are not in a class of there own. I'll try to get better pics of both for the Wiki. The Orange colour on the none Thai form is very nice indeed.I'm going to do my best to get these all to flower in the next couple of years, cross seed would be very cool.

Frank I'm sad and ashamed to say I killed the ones you send me. I thought the Ventricosum would make it but it rotted in the center, all my fault.So these Ensete are new ones.

I've no seeds at the moment , I dug around in the pot where I found one seedling Ensete and there are no more yet.
I'm trying to save a few Musa Banksii seedlings that's my project for tomorrow.

Later
Steve

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D.C._Palms_N_Sports_Fan

Howdy "neighbor"! ... well.. close enough anyway.

Very nice collection!

I too have kept mine in pots this year as well, but mine are going in the ground this weekend. Its not too late to get them in this year. We still have 2-3 more good months of growing before the "COLD" gets here.

One of my guys I picked up for very cheap just the other day (yesterday in fact) I wont be able to leave out this winter though. He is a grand nain, and it is my understanding that those are NOT corm hardy in our area.

Are all of the Enesets hardy here? I know Ventricosum "maurelii" is for sure because there are quite a few of those around my neighborhood, along with Basjoo. I think you might be slightly colder up where you are than where I am as well since you are just north, and slightly outside of the down town urban heat island, and away from the tidal potomac.

Great stuff! Looking forward to seeing more!

Btw.. What is that VERY TALL big guy? Is that a Basjoo?

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Tropicallvr

I'm a little surprised that E.ventricosum maurelli does that well in your area, most likely the cusp of it's cold tolerance. Right now Ensete ventricosum varieties seem to be the most cold hardy of the genus(zone 8)followed by E.glaucum(dry winter zone 9), and then the superbums(also like dry winters 9b-10a). Ensete perreri is unknown at this point, as well as that new species from Rare Palm Seeds. These are just estimations, but that what it seemed like they could handle in my cold greenhouse in zone 8a.

Steve- I'd like to see some hybrids, that would be great. One guy on the IPS was selling Ensete glaucum seeds from plantgs he grew himself, and he said that they self fertilized, but then he said that he had a Ensete superbum flower and it didn't produce any seeds. I'm not quite sure which superbum it was, but a non self seeding one would make it alot easier to tell if you had a good cross pollination. Other wise I think you have to cut down into the bract and cut of the pollen before it pollinates the stamen. Shouldn't be too hard to do, though...in theory.

bigdog

Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' isn't hardy here in Knoxville, although Randy overwintered the green form a couple of years ago in Cleveland, TN. 'Maurelii' isn't even reliably hardy in Atlanta. Interesting that they do so well in DC. None of the other Ensetes are reliably hardy outside of zone 9, although a friend of mine has overwintered E. glaucum outside in zone 8a Alabama. They just store so easily bareroot in a garage, basement, etc., that it doesn't make sense to risk losing them outside.

Lagniappe

E. Maurelii does far better than any of my other plants here in zone 8a . It pops up months before the musas .The E glaucum is a bit slower , emerging after the Musa . I have less than an inch of mulch on both .

D.C._Palms_N_Sports_Fan

Lagniappe, do you leave that out, unprotected all winter? Just 1" of mulch?

I guess you do not cut the stem back to the ground or anything like that either?

Just wondering. IF I try to overwinter in ground here, it will be my first year doing so. Im trying to find out exactly how that person who has them all over thier yard gets them to come back every year. One of them is as tall as his 2 story house, so I cant imagine they dig up a corm that big every year.

It just blows my mind how big they come back each year!

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tophersmith

Do you have any Pics of these 2 story Ensete's there in Virginia?

D.C._Palms_N_Sports_Fan

These were taken around June 1st. They are MUCH larger now.








In the 2nd pic, you can see its at the top of the windows of the 1st floor. Its now up at the top of the windows at the 2nd floor.

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tophersmith

My guess is they were overwintered indoors somewhere

D.C._Palms_N_Sports_Fan

I dunno for sure, but I am going to find out. I can tell you they were left out until they died to the ground. Its only about 6 blocks from my place, and I swing by as often as I can to look at them, and last year I did see them out there well into late october, and they DID get flattened out by a "cold" night by sometime in mid November. I remember last winter here was very warm. It was in the upper 60s around thanksgiving, and the trees held about 50% of their leaves here until about christmas. I did look during the winter and there was no discernable hole in the ground either where they were, and in late feb/ early march of this year they started coming back out of the ground. I saw the tips poking about 1 foot up and were bright green and dark red.

Im going to drop off a note at thier place with my email address and a couple of questions on exactly what they do with them. They also have in thier yard quite a few palms that are NOT hardy here, as well as some large tree ferns. Id like to know what they do w/ those too.

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damaclese

E ventracosum can live for up to 10 years althoue the norm is 5 with proper mulching you could easly leav them in the grownd in zone 8 in a protected microclimet they sould come back biger ever year mabe the ones in the latest pics are just farly mature and are not realy that big for there age? they look stuning im hopeing my new bach looks that good in the future

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tophersmith

Well this gives me hope as lasy year mine was a bear to move and this year I have 2 that are already that large.

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Lagniappe

I leave mine in place and only cut the leaves off after they've completely dried up . They got to this size the first year (from one foot plants) and return to this size after 1-2 months spring growth . They keep putting out leaves but never get taller for me . Mine look horrible now because I've neglected my garden this year and only fertilized once . My sprinkler system shorted out as well and I just realized it a few weeks ago . On top of all of this ,we have had record heat this year with indices of 110 .