Aranon

My 4 banana plants I brought indoors are losing leaves, fairly fast. I'm getting really worried about them, I have 2 that I don't know what the variety is (I thought blue java but people seem to disagree) and I have 2 Dwarf Cavendish and like the other 2 they are also losing leaves.

My growing conditions while not being optimal are not in the least bit bad. The one concern I am having is root rot, I have already lost a Basjoo due to this and I believe that's whats happening to these 4. When I use my water meter deep down in the planter it still lists it as being very moist. Another thing to note is that when I touch one of the dying leaves the stem starts to feel really mushy and soft. They lose the lowest leaf then once it's gone the next one up goes and so on. The two larger ones as you see in the pics pushed a nice new leaf through before completely stopping growth and one of my dwarfs has a leaf pushing out but its now turned brown and half of the leaf is dead before even coming all the way out.

So I don't know what the heck I'm doing wrong now, I have not watered them since bringing them indoors over a month ago. So take a look at the pics and tell me what you think.

Abnshrek

Your going to loose lower leaves, but the new one is some kinda deficiency..

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Kat2

I hope I never see one of those but I'd advise not picking at it. (Someone with more knowledge may say to cut it off but I was brought up to not pick at things and always wear clean underwear.)

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Aranon

Well I decided since I was so worried about root rot that I transplanted the two larger ones into 17 gallon buckets, I inspected the roots and they looked pretty healthy to me aside from some black shriveled up roots that I removed, the plants were very root bound too. I added some pics of the roots, do they look okay?

Kat2

Did you fluff the roots when you transplanted? Not that I know banana roots per se but they look healthy to this old gardener.

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Aranon

When I moved them into new pots I tried to loosen them a bit, I didn't want to hurt the roots so I was gentle, they could probably use being loosened more.

Kat2

They'll probably do fine; that is not root bound IMO. I'm new to bananas so treat them carefully but any other plant I set in dirt or a new pot I score roots and do a major fluff; I'm pretty brutal even with tomatoes. I've seen too many expensive plants wither and die a few years later because their roots never explored past the area they'd had in their 1st gallon pot--pull them up and you'll see a tight ball where they've circled around then choked to death. (What ticks me off is that when I landscaped in Ohio the company did tree installations without cutting the burlap much less scoring potted ones. And they also charged to install pachysandra and ivy....that's like planting Kudzu in the south...)

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Olafhenny

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Lancelot

After bringing plants in for the winter, I lose many leaves, but I don't worry about that, I just want the plant to survive the winter stay inside. Once they get back outside, they grow new leaves and look no worse for the wear. I cut off the bad leaves when they turn yellow, try not to overwater, and just check for any diseases or mite problems. I've been doing this for 3 winters now, and have yet to loose a plant, and I have over 30 of them that I keep mostly in the basement with lights. Others that I want to keep more active or want to keep an eye on more I have upstairs in warmer and sunnier spots.

dana mastro

I would put foxfarm ocean forest soil it will help it cuz that soil looks old and gross like loss of nutrients you don't have to get what I recommend but do change soil to something better than miracle grow

Olafhenny

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Kat2

There is nothing wrong with using MG potting soil; it's certainly better than some of the other potting soils out there. You do need to amend it after 6 months or less. When I had access to an oven where I could bake smelly stuff on low for a few hours at 200 degrees stirring every 20 minutes or so, I cooked compost and used it confidently for starting seeds or houseplants. No damping off and no need for amendments for quite a while. Baking killed the nasty bugs (and no matter how well I sifted some plump worms) but the goodies were still there. Since I have neither a place to bake or compost, I'm using MG judiciously this year.

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Kat2

This nanner novice has observed the difference and is respecting such.

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hanabananaman

I have been growing things in containers for many years, bananas for just over a year. All my plants benefit from an occasional flush with RO water. I use plastic jugs at the store and get 10 gallons at a time and flush out salt buildup. My larger containers I flush with tap water, 2 of my bananas that were stalled a little have perked up after a good flushing. My tap water is very hard so salts build up quick. Unless you get huge amounts of rain the small soil surface of a container can't get enough rain to flush it well. It might be too late in the season to flush plants that are winding down but watering with some RO might help if your tap water is poor quality. If you have the equipment you can measure the PH and TDS going in and coming out and get an idea what is going on down under.
I recently transplanted 2 bananas that had similar rootballs and both of them perked up quickly.
To the Ocean Forest idea, I love that stuff but it is so costly I only use it on seedlings and small plants. I would love to see how well a nanner would grow in it.
Good luck

cincinnana

[quote=Aranon;233273]Well I decided since I was so worried about root rot that I transplanted the two larger ones into 17 gallon buckets, I inspected the roots and they looked pretty healthy to me aside from some black shriveled up roots that I removed, the plants were very root bound too. I added some pics of the roots, do they look okay?

The only thing I would do differently for your (my) zone is to do your repotting during your growing season, this will give your plants time to recover from the root trauma.
Doing it now in our zone (repotting) just causes more stress which your plants might not be able to handle over the winter
I will not pot up a banana after mid August unless I have to.
Imo.

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Olafhenny

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Aranon

[quote=cincinnana;233296]Yeah probably a bad idea but I was really worried about rot, turns out the roots were fine for the most part, I didn't disturb them very much just loosened a bit up and moved them to a larger container.

Aranon

My two largest ones have yet to give me pups. The Dwarfs and Basjoo did but these two have given me nothing yet which I find odd considering their size.

Kat2

I'm a serious sifter. I have a homemade thingie that looks like a raffle ticket spinner; it's 3' long and about 1.5" wide and it's "lined" with 1/4" hardware cloth which means you can "process" not quite ready stuff because the big items don't pass through (back to work more) and the rocks that ended up in the mix because the men in my past life didn't bother picking them out don't either. But I still bake any "natural" dirt I bring inside...or buy something sterile...I have fought my share of outside pests who loved being inside and partied hard. I won't again.

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Olafhenny

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