Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

I'm in NE Atlanta and have been growing nanners for 25 years or so. Yep, it's that sad time of year again. This weekend I'll be cutting my Basjoos off about 6" from the ground and giving them a heavy mulch of pine straw...maybe 2' high and maintain that thru the winter. I have 3 large clumps of these and they are like weeds in this climate...maybe 25' high! I do the same with my Thai elephant ears....OMG.....that thing gets HUGE in this area, leaves are like 4' across! I have a few new types..Mekong and Kandarin African.....these I intend to dig and store in garage.....no light. I trim all but one or two leaves and remove most of the soil, no pot or watering this usually works and replant around Easter, maybe sooner. I had a HUGE snow banana (Ensete Glaucum) last summer and the trunk on that guy was way over a foot in diameter and I could not move it. It did not survive the winter. I bought another one and am keeping it in a pot to keep in the garage as well. We have had a few mornings near 40' here and I'm readay for spring ...the hell with winter! :)

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

:ha::ha: so soon. Actually our summer has been so bad we cancelled it....so yes, roll on spring duluthga....:nanadrink:

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

i do feel for ya..no really,where i am in florida fingers crossed our cold for the year,below 45,does not last longer than 30 hours total..sorry, but i did live in Sparta and Hendersonville TN. for about 7 years total,so i know where you are comming from..good luck,my fingers are crossed for all to make it and to grow big next season

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

i do feel for ya..no really,where i am in florida fingers crossed our cold for the year,below 45,does not last longer than 30 hours total..sorry, but i did live in Sparta and Hendersonville TN. for about 7 years total,so i know where you are comming from..good luck,my fingers are crossed for all to make it and to grow big next season....

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

It was extremely a wet summer,

In England we expect rain, this year was monsoon type rain at times.

:mad::goteam:

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

It was extremely a wet summer,

In England we expect rain, this year was monsoon type rain at times.

:mad::goteam:

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Hi there!

I'm a banana newbie from central NJ zone 6B. I have 2 bananas and a bunch of pups planted in the ground. We had a frost 2 nights ago and my banans'a leaves are dark and flopped over but the stems are strong. Last year I had 2 nanners, cut them down to about 12 inches and mulched them in and covered them w/ a bucket to protect from too much moisture. Even with a mild winter neither survived. :-( I planted one of the pups I over wintered on my kitchen counter and bought another small guy and they're both 5 ft + (including leaves). Should I:
1) cut them down again, maybe to the ground this time?
2) store them bareroot in my unheated attached garage or maybe in the basement by the furnace?
3) cut most of the leaves off, wrap the stem and try to over winter them outside like I do my windmill palms?
4) remove some or all of the pups again
5) other
????
Any advice would be appreciated!

Thanks!
Lori

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Dug up my babies Friday to protect them from the 20 deg cold snap


Think my garage looks a little full?
Leaves are bending off that 10+ foot ceiling!
On the left sikkemensis, middle Maurelli & I think maybe oronocos on the right (but not sure, anyone's guess)
4 or 5 plants on the left, and 8 yes 8 pups off the mother on the right in that tight small space



Lori:
This is what I do every year so far. I stick them in those big blue rope handle laundry tubs from wal mart and put them in my basement over the winter. If your basement gets too warm they try to grow but without enough light it is very stressful and they get blanched and fragile.
I run 3 shop lights on a timer through the winter and water when bone dry. I need to double my light output because they still come out too light.

Basement is fine, put them in a corner away from the furnace. You don't want them to try to grow down there where conditions are not right.

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

try all of the above. who knows what kind of winter we are going to have? if you knew which was to be, than you could be sure what to do, since we don't, hedge your bets and try them all, or at least try the ones that you feel like trying, it's learning curve and we all have to learn it!

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

try all of the above. who knows what kind of winter we are going to have? if you knew which was to be, than you could be sure what to do, since we don't, hedge your bets and try them all, or at least try the ones that you feel like trying, it's learning curve and we all have to learn it!

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Here's my Basjoo winterization project, After a few visits from Jack Frost.



The corms looked a little shallow so I added some soil.



Sadly removing most of the leaves



Putting the cage structure in place then mulching



I filled the rest of the cage with straw



Then finally tarping it all up and securing it to the ground



I hope this experiment yields me a larger plant next summer. If not I have a few back-ups in the house if this is a failure.

Thanks for viewing! :nanadrink:

This is open for critique also.

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

looks like you did it right and put alot of effort into it hopefully it works out for you

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Hey neighbor, I'd put some more thick mulch at the bottom, in a big circle around the plants to protect the roots more just in case.
Did you plant them a foot deeper than they were in the pot originally when you got them? if so, then you won't need to mulch them deeper at the bottom. you are only about 20 miles from us, you'll have to come over and see our big blooming banana when you get in Muncie. It has around 100 bananas on it so far!

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Well designshark looks like he's got a good thing going there and I am trying it this way this year. In the past I have tried several different methods but none seemed to work - including the "patented banana sleeve"......all it did was rot the stem and they had to grow from the ground up......again :(

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Ok - I'm new to this forum so here is my story. I live in Las Vegas and i'm trying to get a tropical look to my backyard so I bought a couple of dwarf cavendish plants and planted them. This was a year ago

They grew really well (about 4 ft high). Not knowing any better I wrapped them in burlap just before winter. Needless to say they did not do so well. They turned brown and mushy. I dug up one and tossed it but the other sprang three pups and I let them grow!! I have three stalks about 4 - 5 feet high!!!

I don't want to do the same mistake this winter. Do I pot them separately or together in the garage? Or do I dig it up and leave it dry rooted in the garage?

Let me know thanks

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

They don't survive dry root as I tried it to large plants like yours in a 55* basement. Pot them up and keep somewhere warm and bright.

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Is the Garage OK? There will be some light. Or should I put it in my den?

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Inside is best!

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

I just protected mine today. I made a whole blog post on the set up. The musa basjoo was a bit of a challenge to protect since the pseudo-stems are around 7ft tall. The barrels really helped out a lot.

Here's the entire set up for all my outdoor bananas.
Steve's garden: Overwintering the bananas and other plants for winter of 2012/2013

Re: Time to put the bananas to sleep for the Winter
 

Dug up some nanners yesterday...that ensete was heavy as €#@%!!!lol


IMAG2506 by natej740, on Flickr