microfarmer

For the edibles I am spacing them no more than an arms breadth apart in a 10' x 15' area. I will have about 10-12 plants in this area. I'll layer them with the shorter varieties to the south and the taller varieties to the north. I'll group the plants with like needs and wants (no mixing of cold hardy CA Gold with sunburnt at 42 deg. Valery).

For ornamentals I'll plant my bananas a lot closer together, with smaller tropical looking plants between them, almost overcrowded. I am replacing a 25' tall x 20' wide fruitless Mulberry shade tree in a 12'x5' flower bed with a tropicalesque flower bed including 5-7 bananas of different varieties and sizes. It will be between my patio furniture and (satellite dish) pond for a more cohesive look. It also must supply the same amount of shade as the Mulberry for afternoon patio sittin'.

I also have a bed out front with 7 plants in it, but I will expand that to about 10-12. It is 32" wide and 20 feet long.



The way I figger it, If you can get bananas to fruit in a pot, then if you put all those pots of bananas together, you should be able to grow those same plants, in that same formation, in the ground. Maybe more successfully, as plants love to be in the ground!

Pay attention to what the plants like and their terminal size. AeAe like more shade (north). Saba gets big and goes in back (to the north) Dw Cav up front (south) and maybe an Orinoco in the front middle somewhere and a Brazilian behind it in front of the Saba. Some like more daytime heat (west) and some less (east). They all love water and ferts when it's warm out, so that's easy.

Planted this close also helps in the winter as I have small areas to protect but jammed with plants.

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bencelest

[quote=microfarmer;26433]:
The way I figger it, If you can get bananas to fruit in a pot, then if you put all those pots of bananas together, you should be able to grow those same plants, in that same formation, in the ground. Maybe more successfully, as plants love to be in the ground!

P/QUOTE]
Yep! That's my way of thinking. And I'll do as you say, the shorter bananas in front and the taller ones at the back so everyone has a share of the sunlight.
And all of my bananas will be dwarf. I won't worry about their cold hardiness because they will all be protected in the Winter time. If I can make an atemoya to stay alive there so will all my bananas.
I will separate the most taller ones and they will be planted somewhere else.

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Banana Nut

Tropicallvr

Sounds like you got some space to play around with. I remember seeing some unknown bananas in Heldsburg CA, planted in a 2 X 8 cement bed along the south side of a house. The bananas were kinda forming to the cramped encloser, and p-stem bulginging over the edges. There wasn't a inch of dirt seen(not sure how they were able to get water to them though). Anyways after that I realized how much they can take and still look good and not seem hampered by tight spaces.

Musa manii, and other small tropicals(aroids, gingers, ect) make nice under plantings too!

CookieCows

That was great info on the placement of the different banana types. Being a novice (understatement) at tropicals ... simple help like that for me is what can help me learn the different plants and their needs. I have a Banana file on microsoft word where I cut and paste just the info. I need to remember and have "at a glance".

Always learning from you all! Thanks..
Deb

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magicgreen

I agree with Microfarmer! This past summer i was out at a garage sale, and i was walking by and saw this banana plant about 5 or 6Ft tall in a small pot of bonedry dirt! And the plant looked good! It was when we had highs of 100*! There was a tree to the left of it, iam sure gave afternoon shade. hmmm......... I thought......They can take more than i thought!

Anyway.....................................

Ive noticed alot of members here, show pictures of their plants, in pots i would consider wayyyyy tooo small.

But so far what ive read, and seen, so far says bananas like company of other plants or a tight space.

Even in pics' of banana plantations, they are fairly close.
Soooooo in growing bananas, you can grow in a narrow space,or a small pot,(but you have to keep it from falling over) just as long as there is full space for their leaves, or you'll get shredded leaves.{unless shredded leaves dont bother you} If the leaves hit each other, a structure, planted in a windy area, they'll be shredded or knocked over!

I dont want shredded leaves! And noooo i wont have a bunch of shredded leaves on my nannas in my garden, because its like its own lil' microclimate.I live in the city, the houses and fences make wind breaks.

I only had 2 in my garden last summer. They were 3ft apart. And young! And I knew then, they were gonna need room for those leaves.
When i picked up my DC, they were 5*& 6* tall. planted 5 and 6* apart, and no shredded leaves!

He underplanted some with EE"s and palms. And around the border for the nanners, he grew giant castor bean plants as wind breaks. He had acres of land. Some folks ive seen, planted pineapple's underneath the nannas.

My basjoo has daylillies half mooned around it. I hope it makes it. This basjoo is planted in the middle of my front yard. I had giant sunflowers planted around the border of the yard. I learned then that the sunflowers acted as a wind break, the Basjoo didnt have shredded leaves by the end of summer.

Iam looking forward to this summer to see if the same is true again. This time i have those castor bean seeds, instead of those sunflowers.

So I want mine; 6ft apart and grow other plants in-between. It'll be a really pretty picture. And easier to dig up, since i have to over-winter alot of my pretties anyway!

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(Started growing bananas July 2007)
(Zone 6)

bencelest

MG:
Right on!

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mskitty38583

i have actually drawn out the planting guide to my new banana beds for the spring. and i will actually have more room then i thought. so now i got to get some black ee's and some more green ee's to go along with my nana trees. will probably put some snake plants out there also. i have some tiger lilies that will look awsome out there with a few cannas for color. then i went out to smoke this morning...bad mistake! i have a flower bed that is about 40ft lng by about 6 ft wide in the front of my house. i have one peace rose bush out there that is 18 ft. tall and a don won climber at the other end, and daylilies and tiger lilies.so i was thinking... dwarf cavandish or sdc, and some other type of dwarfs and some ee's out there...( also thought about some ornata out there.) i have stepped into a hornets nest now. dont know where ill put the rose bushes but they will be on the fence row along the back fence somewhere. ill have to get some cold hardy palms to finish out the affect. this is fun. im tired already and i havent even begun. lol

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magicgreen

Mskitty, i like that weather underground banner you have.

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(Zone 6)

inkcube

actually they are not that close. we plant in a double row hexagonal layouts for the dessert cultivars; Valery & Grand Nain 2.6 m (8.5 ft) apart with row spacing the same, Dwarf Cavendish 2.5 m (8.2 ft) x 2.5 m (8.2 ft), plantains we plant straight rows at 3 m (9.8ft) apart and 2 m (6.5 ft) between rows. back in the Gros Michel days they planted them 4.87 m or 15.9 ft apart.

AnnaJW

Hey Mskitty! I can't wait to see your results, however you plant 'em!
I started out being very careful about spacing. Then the gophers screwed up my planting design. Then I got to visit Pitangodiego's place in San Diego in 2006. Once I saw a true banana jungle, all (formal) planting designs were gone! That's when I started just putting them all over the backyard. Whatever you decide, it will be awesome!
Hurry up Spring! LOL!!!

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mskitty38583

miss anna: i have half the work done in the first bed. however i guess god didnt want me to finish yesterday...it rained really hard for half the day. now its good and soggy outside. i might get out there and play in the mud to get everything else moved( dont know where im gonna put the rest of my flowers, but i will find someplace). i cant wait to start getting stuff put in the ground. im still trying to settle on what kinds of nanas i want to put out there. i know i want basjoo, and a hcm, but i got to reading about the dwarf oronico and the dwarf braz.red. so many nanas, so little time. lol. in the front bed im thinking sdc's and a zebrina's. who knows ill probably change my mind 50 times before it gets in the ground. there is one bananatree (besides all of mine) in this town. for two yrs i have tried to buy it from him. it looks like an oronico. he didnt even know that he had to feed it. so i told him how to feed it, and one month later that tree had grown 3 feet, and had so many leaves it was beautiful.( i still want that tree!!) i just cant wait to get my yard on its way to the tropics! i cant wait to see it myself! thanks for the confidence yall, it is inspiring. to bad i dont have a back hoe, or a ditch witch....oh well.

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microfarmer

Healdsburg, huh? Sounds like another motorcycle trip in the making. I had planned to go to Golden Gate park 2 weeks ago to get pics of the blackstemmed bananas, but I cancelled due to rain. The last bike trip I took to the coast (about 3 weeks earlier) was to pick up 150 oysters, and it rained all day! I was soaked and very cold by the time I got home... I didn't want a repeat so soon.

Don't forget to get more bananas! I like the Tiger lily idea! I already have some where I'm replacing the Mulberry. I'll need to get more now. I also have a Kahili and white ginger and some veriegated Spiderplant, and a dwarf canna with a fruitpunch colored bloom. I also have many pineapples to use, and can prolly put in some herbs like basil and cilantro, and some kale for the wintrtime.

The front bed along the driveway will have 2-3' between bananas and have a nice underplanting to it also. The problem is, I'll need shade tolerant plants up front as I get the shady north side of the neighbor's wall/fence at the base of the bananas. I have helliconias planted there now (no bloom yet) and Coleus and Impatians did very well for me. Maybe some ferns...

My back fence area out by the horse pasture won't get the fancy look and will look more like a plantation than a flower bed. Spacing there will be more generous for more fruit production, but the plants will still be about 4' apart, give or take depending on mature mat size. I don't want to crowd them too much.

Smoking is a bad mistake


Inkcube, at those distances (up to 16' apart) it seems like you'd have no leaves touching each other. Is this an industry standard for maximum production, or more for machinery access, or is this to reduce desease spread or better nutrient delivery? I'm sure you don't do it for the 'look' of the plant. What kind of palntain is in commercial production? Are the plantains and Gros Michel of similar heights and widths? If so, what is the reason for planting rows of Gros Michel almost 2.5X as far apart as the plantain?

Plantains, with rows @ 2m/6.5' apart, is fairly close, and more like the spacing a home gardener will use. It makes my 4' apart sound like I still have plenty of room. I do understand that a Saba mat will not be anything close to the size of a Dw Cavendish mat and will need more spacing than the Cavendish, but I don't have very many giants (1 Saba, and 1 Brazilian?) with the rest of my bananas coming in around 8-14' tall. I'll be using a somewhat hexagonal planting also.

so many questions...

Jeff

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magicgreen

Ink cube, Do you have a picture?

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mskitty38583

smoking is a bad mistake. me, like mark twaine have quit a thousand times. that is the last real bad habit i have. it is one that i intend to remedy...eventually. i love tiger lilies, i think that they look and have a tropical flare. im even thinking about moving all my lilies into the nana beds in clumps. the more nanas the merrier. lol i like your ideas microfarmer. i dont have white ginger or any ginger for that matter.there will be time for that later when i get everything settled in their places and find the empty spots. and have to have something to use as a fill in.( i have ground ginger that i cook with...lol) post pic when you can.

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inkcube

at the plantation level density is fairly complex and is base on locality, cultivar, soil type/fertility, plantation health & longevity - once set it is difficult to adjust. for the most part density is determined for maximum bunch production. high densities cause longer crop cycles, smaller bunches with smaller fruit but increase total yield per hectare. the numbers i gave above are fairly standard. also considered in the spacing is followers which is typically one, there are exceptions. plus once the bunch is gone from the mother we prune off leaves to give more light to the follower.

Gros Michel is such a robust plant, we still keep a few. it gets up to 14' with a thick stout trunk and a fair leaf spread, might be my favorite dessert banana.

we grow plantains for local markets and predominantly grow FHIA-25 which is a semi-dwarf plant but a few Puerto Rican Dwarfs, and some horn types - all 10' or under. most of the ones i see growing are the common dwarf cultivar or a horn variety. off the top of my head i cannot think of the cultivars grown by Bonita & Del Monte, their farms are in Ecuador, probably a horn or French type possibly an FHIA cultivar.

for the home grower that doesn't grow for a big bunch with big fingers plus face space constraints 4ft should be fine. i would think height would not be affected too much until the mat gets thick.

microfarmer

I figured that maximum bunch production was the aim of spacing, but I had no idea that high densities caused longer crop cycles. I guess higher densities create more shade and the plants take longer to mature...and fruit.

Only 1 follower? how do they know which one to keep?

I'd like to try this one. Sounds like it'd be wind tolerant even though it gets so tall. Is it cold tolerant as well or sensitive?

Something I just thought of, How long do they keep the mats on a commercial operation? Do they decline after a certain age?

Thanks!

Jeff

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Tropicallvr

Yikes. I always wanted a Motorcycle for cheap transport around town, but winters would suck, and storms come out of no where sometimes. Look forward to your updates.

Here's a Dwarf Cavendish field in Nayarit MX. Fast pic taken from passanger side of a pickup. It's at the end of the dry season, and they look pretty worn, but i thought I'd throw a pic at the thread anyways.
Icecube- I'd like to see some pics please(if you got them)!

mskitty38583

ill take 12 please.

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microfarmer

Those look really short and well spaced. No light competition there. They look to be about 6' tall, & 8' apart.

As for the bike, It's my go to vehicle. I've put 40K miles on this one in 5 years. http://www.pbase.com/conestogaman/image/1488382 It's just so much easier to get around on a bike than in a cage.

I don't mind rain riding, or even rain riding all day, but I need new boots and rain suit. The boots are just plain worn out. I have a nice Kalihari jacket and lowers, well insulated, breathable, and very warm, with thick padding at the elbows, shoulders, spine, hips and knees, but it lets water through.

I also have a very well used up, 18 year old, one piece Vetter rain suit that is rubberized inside (not breathable) and insulated, but it has no padding and is not for crashing in (so to speak), and it lets water thru, somewhere in the sun-don't-shine area. Plus, as an added bonus, after an all day ride your perspiration has nowhere to go, so even if it didn't rain, you are still damp and easily chilled...

One of my most memorable trips was a trip to Death Valley on my old GS in early February '01 with my bro-in-law. We had rain most of the way back.

We went from Sacramento down 99 and cut east at Delano (about 150 miles north of Bakersfield) and went over the Sierra into Lake Isabella. We passed the snow chain control signs and as we climbed, the temp was falling and the snowmelt on the curves was getting slushy. We gassed up about 6 pm and then kept going into Ridgecrest and decided over dinner we were too tired to continue on so got a room at a motel. There was a movie shoot nearby. They had booked every room in the town, but since it was the MLK holiday, the movie crews had gone back to LA for the weekend and we could have the room for one night. That's all we needed...

The next day we stopped at the Trona Pinnacles and marvelled over the moon-like landscape. It was here we discovered the movie set. We didn't know it then, but it was for 'Planet of the Apes'. They mocked up the crashed rocketship, and I got a pic of my bike with the rocket in the background. Look over the top of the helmet on the handlebars at the ragged fins sticking out of the side of the hill. http://www.pbase.com/conestogaman/image/1488512
I also saw my first Joshua trees... http://www.pbase.com/conestogaman/image/1488511

We spent 3 days camped in Death Valley with 75-80 degree weather and drove straight thru with only fuel stops on the way home. Rained for about 250 outta 425 miles with a major accident around Modesto. We lane split for about 5 miles before we got past it. Shut down to 1 lane. I'll never forget that trip even though there were times we were...uncomfortable...

I've already been on 3 banana runs with my bike. I went to Modesto to Jeff Earl's home to get my CA Gold, and I went by Joe Real's home for my Manzano and Zebrina (all doing ok so far guys!). Plus I got 2 pups from my co worker's home. I use my bike more like a packmule sometimes. I've even had 10 bareroot semi-dwarf fruit trees on the back after I ran into a good deal. It's been from LA to Crater Lake and the Sisters.

One day, I'd like to go back to Montana (on my bike, of course). I haven't been there since 1982 when I was living in South Dakota. Then a quick trip over to Utah and the north rim of the 'Canyon' before coming home over 'The Loneliest Road in America' http://www.byways.org/explore/byways/2033/

I'm sure I'll manage to add in a few more banana runs starting with Healdsburg and Golden Gate Park.

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CookieCows

You have SO much fun!! I love road trips!!


in a car with the top down. I'll get the wind in my hair that way! The pictures were great!

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