Quote:
Originally Posted by TommyMacLuckie
I've never bothered with wrapping any bananas but I have insulated them with mulch and leaves and very small ones I put a container over. For the amount of bananas the cost is just stupid high to protect them in regards with buying materials. I've left the fronds hanging down but once it gets below 26 there's just no point anymore. They're beyond offering any insulation at all at that point.
However, the bananas I don't bother to insulate are more suitable for 8B. I wait until April to do any cutting of the p-stems. I would think having bananas that are suited for 9-10 one would want to take caution and cover them.
I had a Grand Nain that I decided to see what would happen. It didn't make it (I doubt they are what one would want to go through a 20, 18 and 22F three morning in a row sort of time span). Quite a few others didn't make it either.
So live and learn. I now know what to do with the more "tender" kinds of bananas. I've often wondered and figured that cutting the fronds off and tent wrapping the entire plant would be best - I've just never done it.
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Amen, brother!
Does all of this extra effeort pay off? On some - sure. Depends on their individual sensetivity, some varieties are much more forgiving. I'll plant just about any banana, if it makes it that's great. If it doesn't, that's fine too. Just another spot to try something else next spring.
I let the leaves on mine hang until I get sick of looking at that mess throughout my garden. At least the naked pstems just disappear, and if I loose a few feet of pstem that's okay too. Last winter was the first to kill them to the ground in several years, and hopefully we'll have a better one this year. Even if I had gone to the extremes shown in this thread I doubt it would have made a difference.
Russell