jbclem

Raja Puri, Calif. Gold. Zip 90290, zone 9b.

1. I have two banana plants indoors in 15 gal containers. What is the minimum night temperature I should wait for before moving them outside. Since this is S. Calif (up in a cold canyon), the day temperatures will probably be warm enough (70-80F) when the night temperatures are right.

2. If I want to plant one of these banana plants in the ground, what soil temperature should I wait for before planting. I've had healthy bananas die after putting them outside and in the soil. They seem to get root rot easily, so I'd like to know the minimum soil temperature to prevent this.

kubali

I am here in fl but when it gets above 60 degrees at night I put mine in the ground and they have always did just fine..hope that helps

jbclem

Do you leave them in the ground for the winter, or dig them up? And do you ever measure the ground temperature?

I've been bringing my containered ones inside when the night temps start getting below 40F. The days can sometimes still be in the 80's

kubali

I have never taken them out of the ground...when it does freeze bad I might lose the plant growing. Then...but a new one always comes up from the corm........as a farmer u know..u win some u lose some....just how nature is and the ones like my AeAe I cut all the leaves off and wrap it with a blanket and soon as it warms up again in spring...they always start pushing out new leafs..hope that helps u

jbclem

Could you tell me how cold (and for how long) you get in the winter? And do the in ground bananas get rained on, or watered, during the winter?

I've had a few in ground bananas survive the winter here (wrapped with layers of Agribon), but they get root rot in the early spring and die. I had one rot from top frost damage, and watched it spread down until the entire plant was killed. I try to keep the ground dry by using plastic tarps tight around the trunk. So far my luck has failed me.

kubali

well this year the coldest it has got here so far was 38 and we have had about 130 chill hours. and it always rains some when a cold front comes, not much rain, because the front are always moving rather quickly...I would be willing to bet that the tarps u are covering them up in are the cause of your rot....when it is cold and wet aeration is a most. What I do is wrap mine in a blanket then next morning take it off and let them enjoy the sunshine. Then if there is chance of freeze again I repeat that process.it may be a hassle, but for me it is a labor of love.

Akula

I planted my banana trees in slightly raised beds because it rains big time in my area of Florida. I have even had a couple sorta "float up" over the course of the year exposing roots around the main trunk. We average 4" in the winter per month and 7" during the summer. More if there is a hurricane or other freaky weather phenomena which seems to happen all the time! LOL.

Try raised beds of 12" or so to help keep the roots dry during the winter to prevent or minimize root rot.

Good luck!

jbclem

When I've planted bananas outside, they've been in 4'x4' raised boxes with 24" sides. The soil here is sandy silt/silty sand, and no one would ever accuse it of holding moisture for very long. I'm actually adding peat moss and compost to some of my raised beds just so I can grow vegetables in the summer...I end up watering so much, to keep them from wilting, the vegetables eventually die from what I would guess is rot from too much watering.

So the problem with bananas and rot is a bit puzzling. Maybe it is the plastic ground tarps I leave on during the winter months. Next winter hopefully I'll have some in-ground bananas to experiment with and I'll try to remove the plastic in between rains.

Temperaturewise, this has been a fairly mild winter, a couple of times down to 29F and 700-1000 chill hours according to nearby weather stations. I'm thinking I'll wait for ground temperatures of 60-65F before I plant. I'm so paranoid about the root rot that I usually wait too long to plant bananas and lose months of growing time.

zfallon84

Half of my banana's are true-tropical varieties. They were sold to me as different, more cold hardy, species. Those do well when the night temps are above 40*F. Otherwise, I get wilting on the leaves. The other varieties that I have can handle into the upper 30's- but they look "exhausted". Though, none of them will grow until it reaches the upper 70*F range.