stevelau1911

I know fall is not the ideal time as far as sunlight, but would I be able to get bigger plants by the spring time if I bought a couple of them now?

I'm hoping to get 2-3ft tall plants by using solely south facing window light. Will it be enough to make progress?

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I'm in zone 6 upstate NY, specialize in growing temperate cold hardy bamboos(mainly phyllostachys) and starting to get into bananas.

my picture website is http://www.flickr.com/photos/31489820@N02/

http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/

blownz281

of course depends on how many hrs of sunlight and how warm you house is. If you have the cash why not try it

sandy0225

I have a few that are over two feet tall in 4" pots now that are available. Pm me if you're interested.

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Sandy Burrell



Northern Tropics Greenhouse
1501 East Fuson Road
Muncie, IN 47302
www.northerntropics.com


specializing in bananas, heirloom tomatoes and water gardening plants~
check out our new online store at our website!

d-lilly

for me,,any time i can keep a plant from going dormant,i feel like I gained 6-8 weeks just in root growth... i have good luck with bananas and elephant ears,,potting them up, very little water,,lotsa windows...they dont really grow,,theres always a green leaf or two..not the prettiest....ps sandy has nice plants dee

stevelau1911

I ended up purchasing 3 of them off eBay. The only way to find out how well they do is to try eh.

Anyways, I think I have a very easy way to propagate them at will. If you literally cut through the middle of the entire corm without cutting off the leaves or anything in the early spring, it would only make sense for both halves to generate a bunch of pups.

Of course a misting system would help to make sure they don't dry out. I also think it is a good idea to use fungicide, but this is the main reason I want to get these guys.


I also think it is cool to have 1+ ft diameter pseudo-stems, and a cool tropical look with reddish banana plants.

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I'm in zone 6 upstate NY, specialize in growing temperate cold hardy bamboos(mainly phyllostachys) and starting to get into bananas.

my picture website is http://www.flickr.com/photos/31489820@N02/

http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/

Abnshrek

Well I can tell you my orinoco meets that description, but isn't red. I just hope they don't freeze enroute. That might be my major worry.

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I'm a Nannerhead :^)

LilRaverBoi

Is this based on someone else's experience or just on a hunch you have? I ask because ensetes do not pup like musas do. It IS possible to force pupping by cutting off an entire large plant and mutilating the growth point....however, it will likely not work on smaller plants.
ensete maurelii red-creating pups

I am personally skeptical the aforementioned method would do anything but kill a perfectly good plant.

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stevelau1911

I have not tried this on ensete yet, but if the plant is big enough, and the main generation point is destroyed, it would only make sense that new generation points will form, especially if there are many leaves which might stay alive for a while even after the entire plant is split in half.


One of the things I have wondered is what would happen if you literally took large drill, and purposely drilled out the generation point on an ensete without doing anything else. I doubt just destroying the generation point will kill the plant.

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I'm in zone 6 upstate NY, specialize in growing temperate cold hardy bamboos(mainly phyllostachys) and starting to get into bananas.

my picture website is http://www.flickr.com/photos/31489820@N02/

http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/

stevelau1911

I just received the 3 ensete maurelii plants today, and they look pretty decent. They only had egg sized root balls, but appear very healthy, and if south window facing window light is good enough, they will hopefully double up in size by the spring.

The one question now is if these guys will be able to adapt to full sun. I will be watering these guys very minimally. After planting them, I might not even water them for after a week just to make sure they don't rot away.

Here they are.

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I'm in zone 6 upstate NY, specialize in growing temperate cold hardy bamboos(mainly phyllostachys) and starting to get into bananas.

my picture website is http://www.flickr.com/photos/31489820@N02/

http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/

stevelau1911

Here is an update after a week. Each of these ensetes have put out about a leaf, and these new leaves look surprisingly better than the previous ones indicating that the window light is strong enough for them even though daylight is close to its minimum at this time of the year.

I'm hoping that they fill out their pots by the last frost so they can go directly into the ground to take off like crazy.

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I'm in zone 6 upstate NY, specialize in growing temperate cold hardy bamboos(mainly phyllostachys) and starting to get into bananas.

my picture website is http://www.flickr.com/photos/31489820@N02/

http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/

Abnshrek

Looking good... Banana's can grow well indoors. I keep mine in the mid 60's w/ lots of light and I get a leaf every 2 weeks or so, which is just right or I might run out of room otherwise.. :^)

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I'm a Nannerhead :^)

stevelau1911

It looks like they can thrive indoors as small plants by a window. I'm not too concerned about the number of leaves they put out. I just want them to thicken up to fill in their pots so I would prefer that they grow short and fat, even if they only put out only 5-6 leaves through the whole winter.

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I'm in zone 6 upstate NY, specialize in growing temperate cold hardy bamboos(mainly phyllostachys) and starting to get into bananas.

my picture website is http://www.flickr.com/photos/31489820@N02/

http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/

Abnshrek

Short & fat, tall & fat.. Healthy is good. :^)

__________________


I'm a Nannerhead :^)

stevelau1911

After 2 months I just wanted to give a mid winter update on these ensete maurelii plants. One thing I found with the 2 that were on the same window was that the one that didn't have the screen grew way faster than the other one simply due to having more sunlight so I decided to move the screen onto the other side to allow the other one to catch up. If things work out as planned, they should both be about the same size again in another 2 months.


The one growing all by itself seems to be growing nice and fat, but staying pretty short.

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I'm in zone 6 upstate NY, specialize in growing temperate cold hardy bamboos(mainly phyllostachys) and starting to get into bananas.

my picture website is http://www.flickr.com/photos/31489820@N02/

http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/

stevelau1911

It has been a couple months since my last update, but just to let everyone know, it is a good idea to start ensete maurelii plants in the fall, even if all you have is window light. I definitely got a head start as opposed to if I bought these guys in the spring.

Here's the progress from nearly 4 months ago until now showing the growth through the winter.
Steve's garden: Growing Ensete Ventricosum Maurelii by the window

__________________
I'm in zone 6 upstate NY, specialize in growing temperate cold hardy bamboos(mainly phyllostachys) and starting to get into bananas.

my picture website is http://www.flickr.com/photos/31489820@N02/

http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/