JoeReal

There was that incident when a gentle breeze blew the sunscreen cover off and it fired their leaves. I have reanchored it much more securely now but then it was too late. The leaves are starting to turn black and brown. I will surely do it better next year.

As to the gentleman, his name is Jeff Earl. I have California Gold, but it seems that my Dwarf Brazilian are cold hardier than the CaGold after my clump was established. For one, the CaGold were hit by the frost first, simply because it has the tallest leaves well above all my other dwarf bananas, and so was hit severely. Now that the Dwarf Brazilian has bigger clump, I think it becomes cold hardier, and will observe that in spring.

As to your catalytic propane, I would try to focus the radiant beam on the soil base. It is true that it is the combined wet and cold that encourages rotting of bananas corm. If you keep them dry, they become dormant. All I needed is to keep them dormant. Yes, putting a black plastic around the base during late winter will also give a headstart for the ground warming up. I do that all the time for most tropicals, and I reuse the dark plastics. If you keep the potted bananas in the garage, water them only once but provide flourescent lighting during the hottest time, as this will help preserve the leaves and remain green and ready for spring planting.

Here's a nice tip to get rid of bermuda grasses. What you can do now is to layout cardboard boxes over them. Continue to do so so that there is no gap where light can go through. Let the cardboard boxes rot over them and those grasses will slowly die off and be gone, but would require almost a year of vigilance with these cardboard boxes.