Las Palmas Norte

sirdoofus

Excellent, thank you. I may pop out there tomorrow and see if they have any left.

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sirdoofus

So I went to the nursery today and obviously had to bring one of these guys home with me. Seeing them in person of course changes my perspective a bit.





After examining them for a few minutes, the first real consideration that came to mind was that they look very familiar. When I had the sikkimensis in Portland, which I looked at every day, I really had no knowledge of or familiarity with banana plants. When I did on occasion see a basjoo growing somewhere (I did know what a basjoo was because my father in law had one) I remember thinking how different they looked in comparison.

I haven't seen a sikkimensis in over a decade (Helen's Hybrid notwithstanding) so want to stress I can't really say I have an accurate memory of what it looks like in person. What I remember about the differences between basjoo and sikkimesis, not counting the variegation. are the leaf shape, sikimesis being broader and blunter, and color, sikkimensis being a darker green. When I look at these plants, they don't strike me as looking different from basjoo, (again, not counting the variegation).

The leaf shape, for the most part, and base color seem generally more consistent with basjoo. The wings on the petioles also seem more substantial than I have seen with other plants (I have noticed small wings on other species), although maybe not as significant as my bigger basjoos. Again, the size of the plants leaves this an open question. And overall, the plants just look to me more like basjoo.

I fully realize it can be exceedingly difficult to ID a banana before it flowers, let alone when its small. Of course many factors may come in to play and affect plant appearance, i.e. cultivation conditions, fertilization, whether from seed or vegetative propagation, etc. which may throw a wrench into any ID attempt.

So, I am going to go out on a limb here, and I very well may be dead wrong as, I want to stress, I am not by a long stretch an expert, but I think this MIGHT be either a basjoo mutation, or a basjoo hybrid. I am going to try and track down the original grower (may be a dead end) and see if I can get any more information.

I am also going to plant this guy in the ground and see if I can over winter it, which would at least tell me it is likely one of the two above mentioned plants, or at least a genetic relative/hybrid.

When/if I get any more information I will provide an update.

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Las Palmas Norte

Maybe a basjoo / sikkimensis Bengal Tiger hybrid? I don't have any knowledge of how that process would work. Glad you where there to pick one up.

beam2050

it almost looks like zebrina rojo or a sumatrana X. colors are the same, but the patterns and petiols are different on mine.

Attached Images

P1010004 (1).JPG (399.0 KB, 6 views)

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npk of wood ash 0/1/3 to 0/3/7

npk of banana leaf ash 1.75/0.75/0.5

sirdoofus

Could be. I of course really am just guessing. If it is a tender variety I will very likely find out after this winter.

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beam2050

no, actually what i was trying to say was, there are a lot of bananas with those colors. i had one that i lost which i bought at one of the local nurseries that had those colors but there was no label telling me what it was either. luck in finding out.

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npk of wood ash 0/1/3 to 0/3/7

npk of banana leaf ash 1.75/0.75/0.5

sirdoofus

Its certainly a fair point, and admittedly my calculation is based in part on the fact the nursery had them labeled as "Musa basjoo - hardy banana" which I realize isn't worth much. My assumption when going to the nursery was they were not basjoo, but when I saw them I was compelled to reconsider.

But you are absolutely right, there are a lot of bananas that look very similar, so in reality it could be any number different varieties.

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sirdoofus

Starting off well. This beauty, whatever it is, survived winter outside, with ample protection of course. So I think it's safe to say it is a hardy banana



I am looking forward to seeing what it does this year.

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Jeff zone 8 N.C.

Very nice! What were your low temps? I see what looks like a small enclosure was over it. What other methods to help it?

sirdoofus

Not knowing exactly what this guy is I went a little heavier on the protection than I normally would for a small basjoo. So basically I put a cylindrical fence around it, maybe 18 inches in diameter, filled that with dried leaves, bark and a foam cap, made a goodly pile of dried leaves around that and on top of the root mass, then covered the whole thing in plastic draped over the frame you see to keep the whole area as dry as possible.

Kind of like this but on a smaller scale:



I think the lowest we got this year was -10C, something like that. Not quite as cold as a lot of years, but still cold enough. Temps like that are usually pretty short lived though, a few days generally.

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