Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' – Best Winter Care?
 

HI All

I live in Cornwall, UK, and have a beautiful Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' in a pot. It is about 3.5 ft in pot, healthy, with a stem as thick as my bunched fist (aggressive analogy there – my apologies!).

My question is which will serve it best for overwintering, before planting it in a border next spring?
• In my bedroom window, south facing? I have heard this might be a problem as it will be weak and leggy?
• In my mother's coldish conservatory (double glazed).
• In the dark in my dad's garage (see how this 46 year old man is still so reliant on his parents to bail him out here!) left quietly 'til spring.
• Or any other advice, gratefully received.

Thanks in advance for your comments. More information will be provided on request and apologies if I have missed anything essential already. I am quietly becoming obsessed with these bananas – stunning plants.

Cheers

Re: Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' – Best Winter Care?
 

Great questions.
There are many forum members who grow this non banana plant for its attractive foiliage including my self.
There are some awesome threads which describe how to grow this behemoth.
If you use the search feature and use your plants name as the keyword.
Some of the overseas fellas use small trailers and wheelbarrows to move them indoors.
I grow mine outdoors and bring it in doors for the winter and place it by a large south facing door.

With out going into a lot of detail about how I do it I can highly suggest that you watch the many short informative videos on Youtube.
You can pick and choose what information you want that suits your needs.
Generally all the videos have something you can takeaway.

Re: Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' – Best Winter Care?
 

Thanks for that, Cincinnana. I will definitely search this forum more and was interested to hear about that south facing door. I wonder if a little draught helps to keep the banana honest?
Yes I have watched many videos on YouTube but find anecdotal evidence very useful too and of course you can't always find an exact answer to a query on YouTube.

Re: Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' – Best Winter Care?
 

Your plant dislikes cold and will honestly tell you so.
Once you bring it indoors you will see a few changes.

Re: Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' – Best Winter Care?
 

Put in a place that doesn’t freeze bare rooted. Mine did the best last year of everything I have.

Re: Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' – Best Winter Care?
 

Hi Gorah, I'm Barrie from Buckinghamshire...if you've got room in your bedroom, that will be fine...keep turning the plant for even growth, water sparingly but don't let it dry out...keep bedroom cool (min 55F) and watch out for red spider mite...lightly spraying rainwater on and under the leaves will deter the mite. This will be fine for a year, maybe two, but they grow huge so you will then get low-light problems.
You're mothers conservatory may be OK but beware of extremes of temperature!
Good luck

Re: Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' – Best Winter Care?
 

HI Cincinnana

Can you elaborate on those changes. Do you mean the warmth of indoors will promote growth/ a certain type of growth? I just want to be sure I understand.

Re: Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' – Best Winter Care?
 

hi Barrie

Thanks so much for that.

I may well try it in my bedroom and then plant out late spring - thank you. I guess its likely to have some weak leggy growth? But also I’m assuming it will recover.

These are truly stunning plants. I have a garden full of camelias which are wonderful but these bananas have really captured my heart for some reason. I could see my garden gradually giving way to them. If anyone wants a dozen 16 ft camelias and are willing to collect… :ha:

Cheers

Re: Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' – Best Winter Care?
 

Hi Gorah,
just seen this thread and wondering how you got on over winter?
best wishes
Peego

Re: Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' – Best Winter Care?
 

You must have chopped the leaves? If one has the room, cana one leave in pot and simply not water? let dry for a week before chop leaves (or until soil totally dry)?

AND what is "inside"? We have a root cellar - min 45 degrees - will that work? - Or raise temp a few degrees with small heater?
What would optimum temp be? (and humidity?)

AND LAST but not least, can we do the same with regular bananas of which we have a lot?

And really, really final, we have lots of ventricosum green - thought to try propagating them via scoring the corm. Do we dig plants (they are in ground), chop leaves, let dry out and cut pstem off, let dry a bit more and score and plant in greenhse at say air temp 65? and on heat map at 75-80?

Re: Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' – Best Winter Care?
 

Al, are you saying you treat it like a regular banana - chop off all the leaves, remove most of dirt from corm (but leave Pstem) and leave it in a cool place that does not freeze? No water, nothing.
And how cool is "cool"?
We have a 47 degree root cellar and hope that this works for all of our nanas and ensete that do not go into greenhouses.
AND anyone else - will 47 degrees be fine for bare root bananas? High humidity (circa 60-80%). As it is a true root cellar, adding a little heat would be easy and economical. We MAY reduce humidity as we store hundreds of corms (alocasia, colocasaia, etc) in it and need to avoid mold and such - though last year barely had a problem, but will have far more plants in it this year.
One thought was to put a fan in it and run it on a timer to keep air circulating nicely for a couple of hrs a day. Comments?