Banana Progress
 

I wanted to start a thread about the progress of all the nanners I got from Chris (Rmplmnz) and keep updating it periodically :-) Here is a picture of the jeep once we had it all loaded.



This is my nephew helping me plant, he carried this rose about 75ft to the bed we were planting it in!



My protector of the bananas by my Dwarf red.

Here is a list of the varieties I got from Chris, I'm not sure how many links we can include in each post so I guess I will post 3 pics per post! Hopefully this works!

Varieties I got
Praying Hands
Rajapuri
Ice Cream
Lavender Ornata
Saba
Bronze Ornata
Rose
Monkey Fingers
Dwarf Red
Dwarf Brazilian
African Rhinohorn
Pitogo
Mysor
Orinoco


:-) I'm one happy camper :0519: and can't wait for them to grow. I will follow with pics of them in their beds and pots. Alot were also given away to neighbors and friends!

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I guess its only two pictures at a time! So here is the protector




These are planted alongside the house they get all of the mid day sun and are about 4ft apart, hopefully it won't be too close if I remove pups as they come.

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There are 4 ornata's planted here with canna lillies in between them.



These guys I wasn't sure if I was keeping or giving away so I put them into pots for now

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You can see the ice cream here just to the right of the telephone pole, in the bed behind them are hidden gingers that are just now leafing out



This shows the growth on one of the praying hands, almost a foot in less than two days from where we cut the corm

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This is the bed out front by the mailbox I planted and put composted manure around the corm and then about 6-8" of compost on top




Then I mulched the entire bed

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This is a huge bed in front of my house, it looks small in the picture but its actually 20-25' x the same. It had existing canna, pinecone ginger, hidden ginger, crinum lilly and brugmansia (angels trumpet) I added 4 bananas to the bed and have since mulched but didn't take an after picture yet!

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Bed in the backyard today



Praying hands rolled open today!

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Bed I made by the pool with a saba in the corner, a bronze in the middle and praying hands on the end , cannas are in between



Front bed now mulched the orinoco leaf is up almost 2 feet!

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:waving: Everything is looking GREAT Kat! :woohoonaner:

~JaNan

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Thank you!!!!

Today I got my first pups! The Orinoco had one this morning and by afternoon it had two! You can see one to the left and right of the old pseudostem.



I also moved the potted bananas to my newly made beach around the pool!

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Yep, I can see them.......Orinoco's are good strong puppers! :goteam: I really love your beach!!! That will be so relaxing to kick back with a cool drink and watch the bananas grow! :lurk:

~J

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Yeap! Once they grow it will be gorgeous!!! I've debated putting another banana bed to the left of the beach as I have one to the right... If I do I can use a few from the pots to put in that bed.

All I need now is an umbrella for the beach LOL that spot is dead on sun!!!

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Oh they do look fab, I am so jealous of your climate!!!

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Thank you! The Orinoco actually has 3 pups today! I'm so excited. Some of these I am not sure how they will take the winters here. My plan is to make sure I bring 1-2 pups of each kind inside to preserve just in case. I got these from Chris off the board and he is two hours south of me. I applied worm castings to all of the ones in the ground today so hopefully that will help them out! I have a worm bed, but its not producing its own castings just yet.

Kat

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Looking awesome Kat!:drum:

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Look at these pups just two days later! Amazing growth!!!

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Thanks, Kat!) Beautiful pictures, and you gave me some ideas, thanks again! :)

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I'll bet that in your climate it will only be a matter of time before we have to cut you out of your house with a chainsaw, he he.
Chris has great plants, I got some sabas from him a couple of years back. I would love to see his place also.
Keep us posted with pics.
Bo

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LOL we shall see :-) One can only hope to need a chainsaw hahaha. Chris told me that I would be mowing the pups over soon! I can't see myself using either but we shall see! How are your Sabas doing? Chris's place is AMAZING!!! We had a wonderful time meeting him and seeing his place.

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My sabas are really nice. I get alot of folks stop by in the front yard and ask me about them. I always have a waiting list when I thin the mat.

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Do you cover them? I think you're about in the same zone as me. How big do they get for you?

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Here they are today, this is only 3 days after the first appeared. There are now 4 pups!



No real big news around the rest of the yard. It looks like another Orinoco out in front of the house might actually be producing its first leaf thats whole (the other has come up all the way that was cut!

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Hey Kat, I don't winterize the sabas, only my shorter fruiting bananas like my Raja Puri. They (saba) are pretty cold hardy and come back every year. They started out like your photos small and cute, but beware, they turn into monsters, he he. They are amazing, when people come to my house, they walk straight over to them and their jaw drops and they look up with this amazed look on their face. Happens every time.
I have some photos in my gallery if you care to look.

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Have you gotten any fruit on them or is it hopeless in our zone? I need to figure out which of the varieties will be worth covering to try and save for fruiting, did you see the variety list? Any suggestions? Obviously Raja Puri lol, but any others I might be able to cover and save to get fruit? I bought some banana fuel so I'm going to start pouring it on them. I wanted to try and stay totally organic with Compost/Mulch/Leaves like Chris does, but alas I am too impatient hahahahah

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Seeing that bananas are very reactive to heat, I decided to cheat a little bit, and add wall o waters on my musa basjoos since they absorb heat, and warm up
the soil whenever there is sunshine. These WOWs have made a huge difference on peppers so this is my way of trying to speed up the progress here.

If I had these I would have removed my winter covering much earlier since these can be used to get an early start on them as well.
I just wished they sold taller ones for plants like bananas. This was from about a week ago, and this plant has since rolled out another leaf.

Re: Banana Progress
 

Kat
I am kinda in the process of the winterizing thing. Last year I winterized a couple of Raja Puri and it worked real good. The Dwarf cavendish did'nt fair so well but they were young and had'nt been planted too long. I have had saba to fruit but it was such a long time rippening that winter came before they made it. I'm gonna concentrate my efforts to Ice Cream, Raja, Dwarf Namwah, Dwarf Cavendish and Goldfinger next year. I would really like to get the Namwah to fruit. My goldfinger were not very cold hardy either. Ice Cream was pretty cold resistant for me last year.
Hope this helps.
Bo

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You have made a wonderful garden with all those bananas from Chris, Kat!!!!! He must be a great guy to meet up in person!

Regarding winterizing,what are your lows? My Ice Cream made it through -3,5C unprotected this past winter,retaining more than 90% of its pseudostem. It saw a good 4-5 nights of constantly below 0C temperatures. If you see comparable temperatures in your area or even colder but dont stay at those or below freezing the whole night,then you will only have to protect a few very tender ones like Dwarf Red,Raja Puri,African Rhinohorn,Pitogo, and maybe Mysore(?) and Monkey Fingers(?) to have all varieties retain their pseudostems through winter.Ice Cream,Saba,Orinoco,Praying Hands(supposedly) and Dwarf Brazilian,along with the Ornata,all are more than capable to withstand temperatures like those i mentioned while retaining their pseudostems and so being able to flower at some point. But wether the fruit will mature or not,that depends on the timing of the flowering as any late bunches will probably be lost at such temperatures.

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The lowest we got was around -4C and this was only a few nights and its not common that it happens. I have a few against the house and it might be possible to make a lean to hot house to protect those and I have all of the tender ones against the house. Then I guess I could pot up some and put them under there too! Hmmm lol the wheels are turning. I have months to decide. My other idea is to dig 2-3 pups of each variety and store the corms inside just to insure that I keep all of the varieties. Any thoughts?

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[quote=stevelau1911;162985]Seeing that bananas are very reactive to heat, I decided to cheat a little bit, and add wall o waters on my musa basjoos since they absorb heat, and warm up
the soil whenever there is sunshine. These WOWs have made a huge difference on peppers so this is my way of trying to speed up the progress here.

If I had these I would have removed my winter covering much earlier since these can be used to get an early start on them as well.
I just wished they sold taller ones for plants like bananas. This was from about a week ago, and this plant has since rolled out another leaf.



So, these WOW warm up the soil, or you think they warm up the heat too? At what point do you put these on? I have ALOT of bananaas LOL, but this might be worth a try on some of them after winter. Right now my temps are pretty good we're getting to high 50s at night and today we're up to 89 and 91 tomorrow so its warming back up

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Was it -4C the whole night or just before sunrise? If it was just before sunrise and the lowest ever you can get,then only the tender varieties are worth protecting and maybe just for the first winter,take 1-2 pups of each variety inside to see how the unprotected ones do. Just be sure to take the pups early to let the corms heal before cold arrives and rot can set in....
A lean to hothouse would benefit the tender ones a lot and you could possibly even keep their bunches through winter if its tall enough. There are other ways to protect the pseudostems of the tender ones but involve more labor each year and are riskier than a lean to hothouse.

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That was the coldest it got and it wasn't sustained the whole night. How early before frost should I take the corms? I plan on only allowing 2 pups per main stalk so I will be collecting throughout the summer/fall and should have them for sure. Is there a point at which time I need to stop removing corms so that the corm is not in danger when frost comes? I was thinking for the hothouse to make it the height of the house and I could come off of the roof. So that will probably give me about 10ft in height. I don't think our soil freezes and I have layers of mulch on top of the corms as well as thick compost which I could refresh before the first freeze as well. I want to start thinking now so I have a few months to decide and get supplies LOL!

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My wall o waters are only used here because of the cool climate which is well below what bananas need in order to grow at the full potential, but I am noticing better performance when I use them since I don't use them on all my plants. They do make plants grow faster.

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I would stop collecting pups 1-2 months before cool and rainy weather sets in. That would give the corms time to compartmentalize the damage and time for the pups to establish new roots and grow a little before winter.

10ft will be enough for the Dwarf Red but the others may exceed this mark by some more feet and that would be just the pseudostem. So with that height,you will not be able to keep their bunches overwinter but you will be able to save a good deal of pseudostem to get flowers again next season.

I dont think your corms of hardy varieties have any chance of getting cold damage at your climate,the only risk is with rot. The pseudostems should also handle brief -4C temperatures without much damage.

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Ok that gives me a good idea, for me that will be around October... I might be able to build it up higher than the roof LOL I will see how tall they are in October and try to gauge from that what I am going to do. I had two no names last year and they both came back but died to the ground. I didn't mulch them or anything though, but this year I will have a big prep coming up lol!

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Awesome job Kat...wow..I am impressed!!

I was a little concerned you may have bitten off too much...have to load the Cherokee up again soon!!!

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Thank you that means alot coming from you :-) :goteam: I'd love to come fill it up again anytime you want hahaha I will be your pup removal service anyday :-) That and eat extra fruit off trees hahahah!

Got plenty of room still in the back, who needs grass anyways right!?!? I'm actually thinking of a plan where the raised veggie beds will be and doing just walkways through the veggie beds :D

Thanks again Chris and everyone else for all the compliments will post more pics and exciting things happen!:woohoonaner::woohoonaner::woohoonaner::woohoonaner::wooh oonaner::woohoonaner::woohoonaner:

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Orinoco pups out front are getting big, this is from the opposite side as the other pics for a diff angle.


Orinoco out in front of the house, leaf is getting big! Can’t wait for it to open

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This is about what CValentine's friend's car looked like last week after they came to my place and I loaded them up!




[quote=Dreaminofthetropics;162472]I wanted to start a thread about the progress of all the nanners I got from Chris (Rmplmnz) and keep updating it periodically :-) Here is a picture of the jeep once we had it all loaded.

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This was the Orinoco in front of the house yesterday


This is today!!! Happy dance

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Look how big the pups by the road have gotten in less than a week. There is also now a 5th pup popping up!

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They do look good, thanks for sharing

Sharon

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Here are some updated photos! It’s been almost 3 weeks now since planting. Today I fertilized everything with Banana Fuel so we shall see what happens! This is the side of the house you can see the Raja Puri closest just started putting out and a few back the Pitogo all of a sudden shot up over 4 feet in two days!

Pitogo close up

:woohoonaner::woohoonaner::woohoonaner::woohoonaner:

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Out front you can see the Orinoco is kicking butt. The African Rhinohorn up front kicked out two feet in the last two days but its very pale and limp LOL. The rose and the Saban (on the left) havent' done anything yet. Hoping the Banana Fuel kicks them into gear


Orinoco babies! They’ve grown so fast, two are on their third leaves already!

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Here is the bed out front that the Orinoco Babies are in. You can see the Monkey Fingers has popped up as well as the Praying Hands next to it. Saba hasn’t come up yet hopefully soon and of course the Orinoco babies on the end!!!

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Those begining to end Images are awesome Kat, thanks!

Heat(your area) certainly makes that difference for sure.

I wish I lived next door to you lmaoooooooooooo

Excellent. I got my first leaf uncurl today..........:woohoonaner::woohoonaner::goteam::waving::birthd aynana:

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I have used a wall o water for tomato and pepper plants, but I hadn't thought about using it for a banana pup. O the thoughts my brain creates after the sun goes down!

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Here are the Orinoco Pups today! I have been busy doing all sorts of things around the yard! Hoping to get some updated pictures of all nanners this weekend!

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Everything looks really great! I would be very surprised if you dont have a lush forest of Banana plants in 2 or 3 months! Im sure it was a ton of work, but It will all be worth it soon! Thanks for sharing! keep up updated!

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WOW!!! whatever you are doing, they're loving it.

Bo

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Started working, so not as much time for pictures and posting! But here are some updated pictures! Leaves are coming up everywhere will have to take some more pictures this weekend when I'm off!

Out front now you can see leaves coming up everywhere, Orinoco has its third leaf and the rose is finally making a leave as well as the African Rhino. The saba has a small leaf popping up in the center. The Sabas seem to be the slowest coming up and I think I have lost one whole row on the inside of the fence :vbseo_replace_urls("( I mixed water crystals into the soil mix with manure etc. That's the only issue I can think of



You can see the ones by the road are going nutso! The Monkey fingers leaf is coming up and the Praying hands is nice... The saba FINALLY shot up about 6" from where we cut it!! The orinoco babies are doing great