servatusprime

Hey Everyone,

Well after living in Florida for 10 years, my family and I are moving to East Tennessee for a great new career opportunity. I want to thank everyone who has helped me with my yard these past few years. This community has been a wealth of knowledge and encouragement. Growing all my tropicals and creating a little slice of Heaven has helped me get through some tough things personally. I’m very thankful to all of the forum members and hope to continue gardening. However I think I’ll have to switch things up a bit.

I wish I could keep my house and my garden, but unfortunately for me, someone else will have to carry it on. I hope that whoever buys my house really appreciates all the time and sweat I’ve put into it. If anyone is looking for a ready to go tropical oasis, drop me a line.

Thanks.

RobG7aChattTN

What part of Tennessee? I'm outside of Chattanooga.

Worm_Farmer

I hope you find a good buyer. When my family sold our old the the new buyer ripped out all of the fruit trees and planted grass. IDK Grass over Navel orange? Just blew my mind.

Best of luck with your relocation. Hope you bring some of your corms with you!

servatusprime

Moving to Knoxville. We currently are under contract for both our old and our new home. With the way the house and the property are set up I think continuing banana growing would be tough. I've seen slit of folks grow them ornamental my as I driven around Knoxville but I think to "downgrade" to no fruit practically speaking would be hard.

I'll have to think about it some more but I may take a hiatus from banana growing until I really get settlerd in my new life. If I could only grow one it would be my gold finger. The plant was kinda enough to recently give me one more bunch (biggest one yet). I wish I could "have it all" but I've also got to be a little practical.

RobG7aChattTN

Some folks will try and grow Raja Puri or Orinocco and store the corms with pseudostems wrapped up in their crawl spaces over the winter but it's pure chance to get a bloom in spring that manages to ripen fruit by fall. I tried both but ended up just growing the most cold hardy ornamentals and just leaving them in the ground covered in mulch over the winter.

Snarkie

Sorry you have to leave it all behind. That really sucks, as I know how much you probably have invested timewise, and what it must mean to you on a personal level. This is why I will never leave North Carolina, as I will not abandon the redwoods.

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Doug (D.A. Hänks) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2955582/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1


The Only Eastern Redwood Forest in America




"Nuke my 'nanners, will you?!"

siege2050

I got fruit from my Tall Orinoco that has been stored under the house each winter, you should be able to do it there. I dont even wrap mine, I just toss the things under there, and six months later, instant banana plants in the yard lol

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siege2050

Speaking of Dawn Redwoods, whats the best way to take cuttings from these guys? My dad has a 30 foot one in his back yard that he got somewhere awhile back. I need some fast growing Redwoods around here lol.

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RobG7aChattTN

I was going to ask the same thing! I see dawn redwood planted around but never for sale (same for China Fir...must have been sold 40 years ago). I've tried cuttings before with no success. I even bought one of the gold cultivars, pruned it nearly to the ground level and flew back from Seattle with it only to plant it right before our "Easter Freeze" that even killed some native established trees.

siege2050

No success here either with the cuttings, they start to leaf out then die. I am going to try rooting them in a ziplock bag with sphagnum like I do my fig cuttings. I sit them on top of a florescent shop light I use for plants and it heats the bag.

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siege2050

They grow very fast if you can get one started. His is in the shade on a hillside below the height of very tall white oaks, but not under, and it grew extremely fast for being in the shade.

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Tytaylor77

How old is the 30' redwood? Just curious how long it would take one to get that tall. Here in east TX we have pines almost the size of redwoods lol. Around 10 or so years ago they started replanting the long leaf pines all over the national forest. They are really cool. As a kid I remember hunting for old ones to find the giant pine cones. Was really rare here but they are all over now.

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150+ Varieties!!. See profile for list. Help me add more!

www.bananapups.com

siege2050

Not sure the exact age but its not been there very long. In sun I am sure it would grow much faster, thats why I am trying to get cuttings to plant in the sun behind my house, as it wasnt planted in the best of places. I clipped some more cuttings today to try in a ziplock bag with sphagnum, but dad was not too pleased about it lol as this is like my third try. Its pretty weird how it sheds its needles each winter, I have seen Bald Cyprus do this as well which I am guessing are closely related. Speaking of Bald Cypress, they are easy to germinate, just stick the strange seeds that look like chunks of wood (Wasn't certain they were seeds until they sprouted) in the fridge in a damp paper towel, take out in spring and that's it. I have tried to sprout Dawn Redwood before from two batches of seed after dads tree started looking cool, I dont think they have very good viability for very long. Fastest growing tree I have ever seen are Paulownia. I grew some from seed last year to coppice for the giant leaves. But I dont recommend growing them for small yards, or in the south. I am not going to let mine flower here just in case because they are invasive. Went from a seedling the size of a pinhead to having foot wide leaves in a few months. I am pretty sure this year it will be over the house. Kinda scary because if you take a piece of root and pot it, in about 2 weeks you have a new tree, so I might end up destroying them lol.
Randomly grabbed pic below

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Snarkie

Hey Guys, I'm sorry I missed this!

Dawn redwood cuttings must be taken during dormancy, and the younger the tree, the better. They root them commercially from green cuttings, but this requires overhead misters and the like.

Your best bet will be to snap a twig from a seedling and place it in a pot full of sand over the winter. Again, the younger the tree, the better the "memory" to regrow. Forget trying to do this with a mature tree; it simply will not work.

Growing from seed is easy; stratify for at least 30 days and place seeds in a moist paper towel in a sunny windowsill. You'll have at least 97% germination if the seed is viable. FW Schumacher in Sandwich, MA is a good seed source. New seedlings are prone to damping off, so spray with fungicide.

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Doug (D.A. Hänks) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2955582/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1


The Only Eastern Redwood Forest in America




"Nuke my 'nanners, will you?!"

Snarkie

Valuable timber crop. You can get $400 a log and they grow faaaaaast! For a while, they were being cut out of peoples' yards and sold. It stopped when a resourceful sheriff cut a piece off one of the stumps and took it to every mill in the Carolinas. They matched it to a log butt and got the perp red handed.

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Doug (D.A. Hänks) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2955582/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1


The Only Eastern Redwood Forest in America




"Nuke my 'nanners, will you?!"

siege2050

Grow fast is definitely what they are good at lol. I actually felt a bit of fear as I watched mine grow. They are not supposed to set seed in cooler places but I have seen wild flowering ones across the border in Arkansas about 15 miles away, so no flowering allowed here as I dont want my neighbors upset at the 20 foot tall trees they have coming up in their yard the second year from seed lol.

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siege2050

Here is one I grew for a friend from a piece of root from my original seedling, suckering could be an issue. Sorry Servatusprime that we turned your post into one about trees lol.

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Snarkie

Cram as many as you can and sell the hell out of them!

If my place wasn't tied up with pines and redwoods, I would have cashed in on these trees a looooong time ago.

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Doug (D.A. Hänks) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2955582/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1


The Only Eastern Redwood Forest in America




"Nuke my 'nanners, will you?!"