sirdoofus

I am just curious, for those of you overwintering bananas indoors in pots (not leafless dry/dormant storage) and making your own mix, what have you had best success with?

I am changing my mix this year and am considering a combination of perlite, bark, and sand with a bit of powdered organic fertilizer tossed in. Maybe a 50:25:25 + a handful fert? Thoughts?

I have had a heck of a time with rot during winter months, even not watering at all, and am chalking it up to poor choices with my mix ingredients (I blame coir mostly).

So before I damage any more plants, I at least want to get an idea of what others who have figured their system out are using.

Any experience would be greatly appreciated.

Edit: I guess I should clarify that the plants I am going to be using this for are currently in the ground, but probably too small to reliably dry store so I will be pulling them at the end of this week and potting them up for over wintering in a lighted, protected garage

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cincinnana

Give the mix a try.

Some forum members use similar for their plants for general growing.
An organic fert will get the damaged roots sorted out quicker for you too.
It's okay to leave some dirt on them.

Pre-wet the bark before use because it will desiccate the roots if dry.
An undersized container helps too.

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sirdoofus

Excellent, thank you. Good call on wetting the bark, I probably wouldn't have thought of that.

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Jeff zone 8 N.C.

Sounds like the new mix is ok but are you putting them into too big of a pot? I find if I start in a really small pot they establish better. I can always pot up later. Of course a small pot will need small bark or no bark until moved to a larger size.

sirdoofus

Thank you. All of the plants I have had expectations of surviving over the winter were well established in pots that weren't too big by the time they came inside. I have pulled plants late in the season and put them into pots without expectations and most of them didn't survive but the pots may have been too big. I will take the advice and make sure the plants I pull this week go into pots that aren't too big.

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