Tropicman

I started these from seed,back in may,germinated very fast,and now reaching the 3 to 4 ft mark,I plan on planting these next spring,and overwintering these in the ground.
Would like to hear from anyone from zone 7 to zone 5,that might have overwintered these in the ground.
Or anyone that has had some experience growing these musa sikki. bananas.
Tropicman

bananaman

Hello.
I am in England and have been growing Musa Sikkimensis for about 5 years
now.
I have not been able to get "red tiger" seeds but I have some "red flash" seeds in my propagator at the moment (no luck yet) guess they are the same.
Basically Sikki is QUITE hardy, I have 3 large plants outside in British (so far quite mild ) Winter. They are heavily wrapped as I always do...some people say that they can overwinter unprotected but I just dont want to lose any of them.
They get HUGE and are truly beautiful with massive leaves and some (variable) markings. I have found that there are two pointers for success 1 to get your plant in as large a container as possible , my biggest one is in a 24 inch pot and 2 to feed often.
They pup readily and the pups grow away quite easily. Not as nice a plant as Basjjo in my view but well worth growing from seed.
Hope this little input helps.
Regards from England.

jeffreyp

bananaman,

You ought to try growing helen's banana (helen's hybrid) as it's a winter hardy plant that produces edible fruit (albeit seeded). There is a seed supplier in the UK reachable over the web at www.rarepalmseeds.com that can assist.

Tropicman

Bananaman,
Does your ground ever freeze?
Compared to a Basjoo,does the leaves shred pretty easy in winds?
Here,my Basjoo leaves tend to melt in extreme heat ,high 90* heat.
And I can't feed them as much nitrogen as the other types of fertilizer,the leaves burn easy as well.