Bananas.org - Winterizing In 8b

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Winterizing In 8b

At the end of Sept I put my potted (kokopo/patupi) banana in the ground. I see people on youtube that cut theirs down to 6" high and I see some that let them just leave them and remove the leaves, etc once they turn dry and brown. I am paranoid about root rot, it's a very tall tree and the leaves now look black in places and brown in others. We had a couple cold nights where it went down to the 30's but I have covered the ground over the corm with lots of mulch.
Should I cut the pseudostem (which appears totally fine) or remove the leaves or what to safely get it through the winter? Any suggestions would be appreciated & let me know if you need extra info. It won't let me upload photos, but I can take one of what it looks like now tomorrow during the day and try to post it here somehow.. Thank you!

Re: Winterizing In 8a

Here is a picture from August and the leaves on this thing were popping out one after the other each one bigger than the last up until about the end of Sept when I put it in ground. We were brushed by Ian and the poor tree tipped over too when it was still in the pot, but it survived.

Re: Winterizing In 8b

I’m in 8a and also have Kokopo but left mine potted to long in the shade so growth pretty much stopped. Hasn’t done to much in the yard with the dry year we have had. I’m digging mine up only because it’s small and a newer one for me. Has a nice pup now but not chancing it. Yours is pretty big so should be fine.

Here is what I have done off and on for years. I used to trim just the frost burnt tips and leaves off. Wrap in clear garbage bags, tarps, blankets. Depending on the winter sometimes that worked great others they got to hot and lost them. I always mulch heavy too. You can get a cage and fill with leaves as well. I noticed that even when I didn’t trim the stems and left old leaves on no difference. With weather shifts here if cut they will sprout out then get hit by frost and the same cycle for several weeks. So end up trimming it anyhow just keeps more size on them. Also have built hoop houses as well.