new Blue Java in zone 7A
 

Hi all! I'm a long time gardener / pond enthusiast, but new to banana trees and to this site.

I heard about Blue Java trees for the first time last year, and was super excited when someone locally had some pups for sale! His tree is 3 or 4 years old, and he said that this is the first year he's gotten fruit.

I'm in western NC (USA), zone 7a, which I understand is a little out of the tree's comfort zone. So I'm hoping for some advice on helping my new baby survive!

My soil is mostly red clay (typical for NC), and I'm surrounded by pine trees so it's slightly acidic (sorry, I don't know the exact pH). I planted it in the sunniest spot that I could; there are trees to the East of this tree so it doesn't get a lot of morning sun, but gets direct sun from around noon until maybe an hour before dusk.

I mulched a radius of about 6' (with the tree in the middle), and added 2 calla lilies, 6 irises, 5 or 6 other smaller bulb plants, and some sedum to fill in underneath. I understand that I should water it deeply every 2-3 days, so I picked companion plants that would be OK with that type of water schedule. Right now I'm watering with jugs, but I might run a soaker hose to it.

Everything OK so far?

What about fertilizer? I know they're heavy eaters, so what type of fertilizer should I be using?

Is there anything else I should know?

TIA!

Re: new Blue Java in zone 7A
 

Hi.. welcome to the site. So im assuming you planted a good sized pup from someones parent plant? If not, and your plant is small.. it may struggle with afternoon sun. Many new plants are grown in pots and dappled sun for a few weeks at least, and then planted out.. the best planting site would allow for morning and early noon sun, but shade in the hottest part of the day. We dont all have that ideal stup available, so use what you have.
As far as water, you will likely need some sort of irrigation, unless you are getting regular rain.. our summer has been pretty dry here on the Gulf coast, so ive been running irrigation to mine daily. Doing that by hand will be alot of work! Misting your plant with a hose or bottle during the hottest part of the day can help it a bit also.
I fertilize my mature plants, (6ft of stem) with 4oz of 13-13-13 every week during the grow season. You can do it monthly (1lb) but i feel our sandy soil leeches nutrients fast, so i prefer weekly feeding. I also heavily mulch with woodchips, and grass clipping when i have them.
As far as the plant surviving in your zone, i would talk to the person you got it from and see what they do.. if they got fruit, even if it took 4 years, they are doing something right! Good luck, and post up some photos of your plant!

Re: new Blue Java in zone 7A
 

I couldn't find a way to upload pics on here, so I'm using ImgBB... I hope this works:










The first pic is with me facing East. That big oak tree gives most of the morning shade, and I'm thinking about having it taken down.

In the second and third pics, you can see that my tree's stem is about 2' tall; maybe 3' once you consider the height of the leaves. I just planted everything last week so the irises aren't really standing up too well, but they're tough and will do better next year.

The fourth pic is with me facing West. I took the pics at around 4pm, and you can see that most of the front yard is being shaded by trees on the other side by now. That's why I chose this specific location, it will get the most sun here. The only other area with as much sun would be right up against the house, but it would still only get afternoon and evening sun since the dogwood (in the far right of the pic) would block morning sun.

I'm planning to run a sprinkler system all over my front and back yard, but it's going to be about $1,000 in pipes! So that might be a plan for this Fall, maybe November (depending on the whole COVID things, really). Getting a soaker over there is going to be tricky, though, I'll have to run pipes under my cement driveway.

The guy I got it from told me to fertilize it heavily, but I couldn't find anything on Google about what mixture is best... so thanks for that info! And I didn't realize that the soil in that area is so red; the top 3 or 4" of soil is nice and black from my soil treatments in the past, but once I dug a bit it was still clay. So I'm concerned that it's going to be too thick for this tree, no matter what I do :-(

Re: new Blue Java in zone 7A
 

What brand are you using? I'm having a tough time finding any with good reviews, they keep saying it's poor quality and runs off too quickly. I usually use liquid fertilizer because of that, but I'm not finding liquid 13-13-13.

And you said you use it on mature plants, do you think it would burn a pup as small as mine?

Re: new Blue Java in zone 7A
 

I buy mine at ACE hardware..the brand is red fox. it may run off quickly, but i fertilize weekly so not an issue.
As far as burning your plant, ive used it since mine were that size... i would not put it right on the pstem, and i would reduce the application to prob 2 TBSP per week. My plants were your size when i started them in the ground 4 months ago.. they are prob 13/14 feet now, with 7-9 ft of pstem. The new leaves are almost 6 ft long.. and it pushes a new one about every 6 days. Seeing as how you only have one plant, you can use a specialized water soluble fert such as Banana fuel from wellspring. Its expensive, but not bad for only one small plant.
I am switching over to urea and potassium sulphate as this bag of triple 13 is about gone. Gonna try the new regimen for a while and see how it goes.
Home depot typically has 10-10-10, and its used often also.

Re: new Blue Java in zone 7A
 

Just keeping you all updated... I've used 24-8-16 liquid fertilizer each Sunday since planting it on 6/29/20, and so far so good! I've already had a few new leaves come up.

Irrigation is going to be an issue; I realize now that the cement driveway blocks off the path that I could run a hose on every side, so I'm going to have to come out from the West side of the house, head East around the back of the house, come out the other side of the driveway, and then down. So roughly 750' to bury :-O

For now I've been carrying a 2G jug of water to it daily. I skipped a day and the leaves started to wilt, so that's become a daily chore.

No questions at this point, just thought you might like the update :-)

Re: new Blue Java in zone 7A
 

Actually, maybe I do have 2 questions:

1. How do I measure the soil n-p-k? Is there an at-home test kit? Is there anything else I should test?

2. What would be the "best" parameters for the soil, for optimum growth for my blue java banana tree?

I'm thinking about wiping out the grass (which is 90% weed) in my front and back yard, mixing in fertilizer, etc to improve the quality of the soil, and then resowing. So if there's anything I can do to improve the soil quality for the banana tree, this would be the right time :-)

Re: new Blue Java in zone 7A
 

1) Where there is free, there is me. Check with your county Extension Agent for soil testing: https://chatham.ces.ncsu.edu/soil-te...s-and-gardens/

2) A local woman has a back yard that is a veritable banana plantation. She uses cow manure purchased at the local box store. I use manure and food scraps. I follow planting instructions from this video (without fertilizer): https://youtu.be/K6XEOOPLYIE

When I raised ducks, I used their kiddie pool water to water my bananas.

Re: new Blue Java in zone 7A
 

I use YouTube for everything.

This guy is in NC too: https://youtu.be/qavoXEWbYEc

This guy's has good tips: https://youtu.be/-UjhlNoTLIE

Here is an answer regarding clay soil:
http://www.bananas.org/f312/clay-bad-11610.html