jpelinga

Hello everyone, Ciao tutti!
My story is this. I live in Seattle in a small 3 building community, now for 5 years. We have a 20 y.o. Basjoo, planted by my neighbor Roger, living in the garden. 3 years ago, my Basjoo was the first cut from the parent plant. It lived in Roger & Joe's apartment, (Roger is known as the "mad scientist" in our little place), for 1 year then was moved to a homemade greenhouse in my building where it's been for 2 years.

In October we made the decision to bring it out for the winter as the greenhouse was being disassembled, (new owners). It was 17' w/ 5 beautiful leaves, I supported it on 2 sides w/ bamboo stalks as tall as the leaves and protected it w/ a sheath of plastic from the bottom of the pot to the very top. It was good to go for a Seattle winter. I had it at my back steps for 1 week when a contractor w/ 3 of his employees working on our building were seen putting onto a truck and taking it away.

A really long story short, I called the police, it took 3 weeks and 2 days to get it home after numerous calls to this contractor from the detective assigned to my case. A confrontation between the detective and this guy at my apartment building finally convinced him that he would be prosecuted for stealing the banana plant, therefore it came home.

It was very damaged but not enough to kill it. It had stab wounds and bruising on the stalk and was hacked off at the top of the stalk. It came home 7' tall and in bad shape. I got into my apartment, Roger examined it, he said it would be ok. The rootball and lower stalk were not damaged. After 1 1/2 weeks it started to grow. Today I and my colleages from work moved it to my work building w/ lots of windows and a 20'+ high ceiling where it will spend the winter.

I can't be happier and in case anyone is interested, the contractors name is Blair Steel, his business name is Showcase Exteriors out of Marysville, WA.

I found this site during my research to get my basjoo back, I'm grateful for it and I'm looking forward to bringing it home in the spring for planting. This is a great site, nice to meet you all and I'll look forward to hearing from you...JP

klemmthamm

Wow.... that is probably the most jacked up thing I have heard in a while... I am glad you got your "baby" back ... at any rate, welcome to this wonderful site you will find lots of useful information here on the forums and the bananas.org wiki. If you need any help with anything just let us know and we do our best to take care of our fellow banana enthusiasts (sp?)


Regards,

-James-

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island cassie

Very sad story but so glad she is home - the things some people will do if they think they can get away with it!! Glad you have joined us!

Cassie

mskitty38583

welcome! welcome! i hope they prosucute to the fullest extent of the law! i am glad that your banana tree made its way back home.

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Kyleaz

I can' not belive that someone whould go to such trouble to steal your plant and then hack it up! I'm glad that you got it back.The things that people will do...
kyleaz

wamstick

Well, i'll be a monkey's uncle. Stealing your banana and trying to destroy it! Well, your banana will be stronger and better for this. I hope the thief gets his just deserts----That will LEARN him (lol). Welcome to the site sir.

Tony

MediaHound

:2687:

Welcome aboard!
Thats a crazy story! The case of the (returned) stolen banana plant!


Justice prevailed!

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