Uh-Oh!...Never did soak my plants before!
 

I just read something that made me get a little worried. Some people have talked about soaking your plants after you receive them. So as to not spread any possible diseases to your other plants. I have bought a lot of plants from tropical places like Hawaii and Puerto Rico. I never did soak any of those plants. How do you know if any of your plants have a disease? Thanks in advance....

Re: Uh-Oh!...Never did soak my plants before!
 

I never soaked any of my plants. If they have anything and it can survive my zone 9a climate and diseases then it can survive what they came with. On fruiting bananas in climates that have a few cold days a year I cover with towels when small and tarps when large as high up the psuedostem as I can. Your objective for fruit is to save as much of the psuedostem as possible from the cold. When it warms up again inspect your plants.Any part of the psuedostem that shows damage cut off and water well. Wait a few days to a week and you should have new leaves coming out of the psuedostem where you chopped the dead stuff off. This lets your plants not start over growing the pseudostem and vastly improves your chances of blooms and fruit.

Re: Uh-Oh!...Never did soak my plants before!
 

What a relief! Glad to know that it’s okay that I didn’t soak them ahead of time! Thanks for the info! Makes sense to cover the pseudo stem from the cold winter! At least it’s quite cold up here in Ohio! Anything to have a better chance to get fruit! Yeah! :0519:

Re: Uh-Oh!...Never did soak my plants before!
 

Ouch, Ohio you are going to have far more cold days than the 4 max I get a year. If you want go grow bananas up there look into a greenhouse or at least a few clear tarps and some old fashioned Christmas lights.

Re: Uh-Oh!...Never did soak my plants before!
 

Yeah I know! Ohio winters can be brutal! I take my plants indoors over the winter. Hopefully that way they can continue to grow over winter! Hopefully that is! Thanks again for the replies! :bananas_b

Re: Uh-Oh!...Never did soak my plants before!
 

Soaking or washing with bleach water is just cheap insurance to kill fungus, banana deases, insects, and nemitodes that may be on plants being transplanted from other locations. You never know. .... In our colder growing zones, the only real likely problem would be nemitodes or rot fungus from being shipped in warped in plastic. .... Washing with bleach water is simple and cheap; or just pour straight bleach over the corm if your just cleaning one. small corm and rinse with water. .... It is up to you if you want to take the chance or not .... you never know .....

Re: Uh-Oh!...Never did soak my plants before!
 

You know what, the way you just explained it does it make sense! Well I think maybe I will start doing that from now on! I wish I would have thought to do this before I brought in the plants. I wonder if this trick would work for eliminating all bugs from the ground off the plants. So when I bring in my plants I don’t have to worry about finding creepy crawlies in my house all winter long! Yuck! :ha:

Re: Uh-Oh!...Never did soak my plants before!
 

while you have them outside, spray 'um with an insecticide or a neam oil solution.