Tall orinoco cold hardiness
 

hello all , I have a lot of tall Orinoco plants as id'd in the "late august bloom" thread in the I D section

My question is,, are they cold hardy enough that can I cut them off at the ground and cover them up like I do my Musa Basjoo's ? and have them survive and grow next spring. or do I need to dig them all out?

I'm in zone 7a-7b,,western Kentucky and SE Missouri

Time seems to be running out fast!!!

Thanks for all your advice!!

Re: Tall orinoco cold hardiness
 

Zone 9A sometimes 8B - Orinoco and namwah are the most cold hardy I've experienced but our ground doesn't freeze - I doubt it would work -

Re: Tall orinoco cold hardiness
 

Just like jose263 said....it is a chance you might want to take.....for fun

For me under heavy mulch in a cool winter the plants will rebound.


But you are pressing it .

Your almanac average says your Cray.
But if you have a favorable microclimate it might work.
It might work 2 out of five years growing.....that is what confuses gardners.

Re: Tall orinoco cold hardiness
 

Well Darn!!!

that's not what I really wanted to hear,, I guess i'll have to dig some of them up, in case it doesn't work I wont loose all of them,,
but on the other hand I havn't had much luck with dry root storing my other ones in the past years either,, so whats a man to do? lol!!

guess I'll just take my chances and see what works the best. and hope for the best!!!

Thank You very much for your replies!!!

If I make it through the winter , I'll let you know how it worked out

Re: Tall orinoco cold hardiness
 

Yes, please do. I am very interested to hear what happens with your experiments. Good luck!

Re: Tall orinoco cold hardiness
 

Now you've got me interested.
You might want to consider burying some type of heating element or other heat pipes.
Around here,(deep south) people often use pipe heating cables to keep exposed plumbing from freezing.
I'm guessing that areas like yours with frozen sidewalks have invented heating element products that will warm the sidewalks and eliminate the ice?
Seems like all you really need is a heating element that will maintain soil temps at 30F or above.
My thoughts - maybe warm water circulation? or heat cable?

Re: Tall orinoco cold hardiness
 

built a 32 x 28 ft. garage once up in north Dakota. did floor heat with copper pipes and used a hot water heater. had green grass around the garage all year long.

depending on area a small hot water heater and pipes with anti freeze buried 1 1/2 ft. deep would work well. problem is a thermostat, would have to have the sending unit buried in the ground.

set the thermostat 50 to 55 degrees. 1/8 or 1/2 hp pump. you would have to reverse your flow into and out of the hot water heater and t in at the top most part of your discharge line and run an open line into a 5 gallon bucket to stop hydro lock.

Re: Tall orinoco cold hardiness
 

depends where your zone is

http://www.bananas.org/328481-post11.html

Re: Tall orinoco cold hardiness
 

Well,,, I made it through the winter,, Whew!!!

and so did my Orinoco's (so far), that I cut off, covered with straw and leaves and a small tarp,

I uncovered them a week ago and this is what I found





its kind of hard to tell from the pics but the top pic has about 5 growing including the main stem and the bottom pic has just the main stem coming out so far,,

they seem to be growing so far, I didn't get over there this week end to check them out, but i'm going to next week end,,

will let you know then

Re: Tall orinoco cold hardiness
 

here is a distant shot of where these are planted for future reference

Re: Tall orinoco cold hardiness
 

here are the ones I had dug up and stored in the garage that I replanted the same weekend

Re: Tall orinoco cold hardiness
 

Nice Pics - thank you. What zone are yo in?

Re: Tall orinoco cold hardiness
 

here is what they looked like before cutting ,,
I think this pic is about a month before cutting.

the one on the left did not grow as good as the other one and im sure that is was due to the soil,, it was very hard clay on that side, I couldn't hardly dig the hole big enough to plant it but I had a couple of extra plants left over, so I put them there to see what they would do.

I guess I'm gonna have to try to improve the soil on that side some how. should I just add some good soil mix to the top , or kind of dig around it and add it into the ground more?

Re: Tall orinoco cold hardiness
 

7a or 7b, Western Kentucky by Kentucky Lake

Re: Tall orinoco cold hardiness
 

Amazing when people pull those big ones out of the garage or basement and replant after winter.

Bushwack, were these two plants the same size when originally planted and planted at the same time?

Re: Tall orinoco cold hardiness
 

Yes, I forgot to mention that, they were approximately the same size and were planted at the same time. I don't have a pic of them right after planting but as I remember they were only maybe a foot tall, (very small), the last two I had and I didn't want to throw them away

the soil on the left side is very hard clay and I could hardly get the hole big enough to plant it in, but I planted it there any way. (I was tired of digging).and I didn't have a jack hammer

the soil on the other side is fine

Re: Tall orinoco cold hardiness
 

For these I would use a few 2x4s to make temporary lean-to green house with poly. Then just cut the plant off at about 3 ft & mulch with the straw. You may see growth during the winter and an early spring start.

Re: Tall orinoco cold hardiness
 

when I got all these out and inspected what I had and where to put them, a couple had rotten parts of the stem and had to be cut back until I saw green in the center, about 10 or 11 in the morning, by the time I got the holes dug and started planting them in the afternoon (about 3 o clock) one of them looked like this, it either grew or the outside shrunk, or may be a little of both