stevelau1911

If you add another layer of tarp, shrink wrap, bubble wrap, or whatever can trap the heat in, then I think that should work.

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I'm in zone 6 upstate NY, specialize in growing temperate cold hardy bamboos(mainly phyllostachys) and starting to get into bananas.

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Abnshrek

I leave my lights on all the time and it creates enough heat for them to be growing like crazy compared to the weather. :^)

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Abnshrek

Rgr that.. got a lil leaf burn w/ just the barrel last night on that one. :^)

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designshark

To Abnshrek: I wouldn't have thought it would even get cold enough to frost down there.

Abnshrek

It wouldn't have if it had just been a frost, but got down to 25F so a lil leaf burn isn't bad.. it was touching the barrel.. :^)

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Abnshrek

I added a 100 more min-lites and it got down to 32F last nite.. There was ice on the windshield but w/ the lites this Cali-Gold is unphased by it, and that was without the barrel over it. :^)

Of course I trimmed the leaf that burnt on the barrel when it got down to 26F. :^)

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blownz281

If the caligold is a Orinoco type then it can handle cold weather. I thought that's what people have said in the past.

Abnshrek

I think the more established the more it is better off. I have 4 orinoco's in different environments. The one w/ tree cover, and one next to a S. facing brick wall are doing the best enduring the elements. After it frosts all leaves are pretty much toast unless its some super hardy inetible variety.
Personally I think think Namwah is more hardy than orinoco based on my observations. :^)

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Illia

Agreed. Mine have also been more tolerant of heat and/or drought.

brandynb988

Ok I'm new to growing bananas and I have to ask. I'm in zone 6 in Washington and it gets pretty cold in the winter. So All I have to do is dig up the plant and store it somewhere warm, then re-plant when it gets warmer and it'll eventually start producing fruit?

Illia

Yes, or get/build a greenhouse, more efficiently a passive-solar type, or container grow them and bring them in during the winter. Just remember that winter dormancy does indeed lengthen out the time to fruit and might even decrease fruit quality, but, you will get fruit. If you get warm enough winters or have a greenhouse, you can always try short fruiting varieties like Veinte Cohol though. They're not cold hardy but may fruit before winter.

bananarama2

There is a wealth of information in old forum entries concerning the many techniques members use to over winter bananas. It's not quite as easy as just digging them up and putting them in a warm spot. The usual idea is to induce and maintain dormancy (minimal warmth, light and moisture) while keeping the corms and stems from rotting. There is a lot of variation to what works, depending on your local zone and temperature/moisture conditions. Do a little reading on the site and you'll find what works in areas similar to yours. Good luck in your efforts.

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Illia

Oh yeah, didn't fully catch the "warm" part. As many have stated before in this thread, which by the way is a great read, - It's best you keep it in a place under the high 50's and above the 30's. Air circulation and not too high humidity are some other important factors, too. I don't know about you but out here on the west side it's always humid.

LilRaverBoi

You can grow basjoo in zone 6 just fine (leave in ground and mulch heavily in the fall to protect overwinter) if you just want foliage (this produces seeded bananas and is 'ornamental').

Otherwise, if you want edible varieties (or virtually any other variety other than basjoo), you will need to dig up and do one of two of the following options for overwintering: 1) pot it up and put it in a sunny window, caring for it as a houseplant over winter being careful not to over-water......or 2) dig up, remove most of the soil, remove all leaves except top one and place plant in a dark room ~50 degrees without watering to store in a dormant state till next spring (not a good option for certain varieties).

And not to discourage you any, but coming from someone in zone 5 who has lived in zone 6......I wouldn't focus too heavily on fruit production or you may be disappointed. It is difficult to grow bananas to maturity and develop fruit with the length of the growing season in such a zone. Most plants, even once the flower comes out, require 4-6+ months with the fruit on the plant in order to fill them out and ripen. This simply is not possible unless you're extremely lucky and get a flower to pop out early in the spring (which you can't exactly 'plan' since they can flower any time of the year). My advice for people in lower zones is to focus on growing the plant, enjoying the foliage and if you can manage to get a bloom at all, be happy with that. Ripened fruit is highly unlikely unless you have a greenhouse you keep at tropical conditions during the winter. Again, not trying to discourage, just being realistic with expectations.

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Illia

Which is certainly true, though honestly I think as long as you can keep your greenhouse at zone 8-9 conditions during the winter you're still quite decent off. Your season would be greatly extended, and some of the most hardy varieties wouldn't mind going through min temperatures of 22-32 degrees.

I think the best thing for northerners without the money for a greenhouse or related is getting into varieties with short ripening times. Rose, Goldfinger, Rajapuri, Veinte Cohol, Chundillikunnan, and if I'm not mistaken, Brazilian and Gran Nain are some shorter ripeners. They don't take too long to fruit but more importantly, ripening is less than 6 months. For some it is less than 4.

bananarama2

As I said before, there are many possibilities, depending on your zone and climate variables. It would be nice to have a heated greenhouse, to be sure, but the cost to heat one in a northern Central Plains location for an entire winter would be prohibitive for most growers. Hence the many creative approaches to digging and over-wintering. Being soft tissued, mostly water by weight plants, bananas don't tolerate cold, humid conditions very well, making storage difficult, but not impossible. As noted by several others, it is all about creating suitable conditions to avoid the dreaded soft rot until warmer temperatures return. More than just a hobby, growing some of the tropicals in less than tropical areas is a major challenge, successfully achieved by a lot of hard working and creative growers who just won't accept the notion of "can't".

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brandynb988

Holy crap! Heat tape! Great idea =)

vitin6039

All,
I know this sound like a newbie question but I have to asked. How long can the corms survive with out soil and litter water. I am in zone 8b and we have a winter season of about 4 to 5 months and that seem like a long time for the plant to sit in the garage and be healthy for the coming spring.

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Abnshrek

Depends on the type that determines if its can take cold storing well.. Orinoco type's can I don't know which others do this well.. :^)

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Funkthulhu

A question of options,

Earlier this summer I had two bananas plants, a Blood-leaf Zebrina and what I thought was a Dwarf Cav. They were both in 10 gallon pots, I managed to keep them alive through last winter and repotted the DC into a 30G this spring (the Zebrina was still happy and small in the 10G). I learned through this site that this "Dwarf Cavendish" is most likely a Musa Basjoo instead. The plant went wild for a few months with a mother P-stem nearly 3 feet tall by June and at the time at least 13 pups of various sizes. Reading up on the Basjoo, I split the pot, split the corm into 4 groups and put them in the dirt to see how they'd fair in a Nebraska Summer. Now that they've been in the ground a couple months, I'm looking forward to the change of seasons. (Winter is coming....)

All 4 bunches have survived the shock and flourished, each producing additional pups after they were planted in the ground. The mother P-stem is now ~4 inches in diameter 6" above the base and the total height without leaves is approaching 5 feet. The others are all much smaller. The smallest group I was planning on digging up and potting up for the winter, maybe even giving away as a gift. One of the middle group I was planning to cut off and cover with mulch to see if it would survive the winter. (Zone 5b, inner city)

But what of Mama? Should I up-root and try to store her in my basement? (~60F degrees and dark in the utility room) Or should I try to pot it up as well and place it in my plant area with overhead fluorescent grow lights until Spring? And what of the 4th group of mid-sized P-stems (<3 feet)? Leave to the elements, store indoors, or pot up and put under lights? (My residence at this point will not allow space enough for plants in any room that gets much window sun.)

Just brainstorming and looking for some insight for my for my second banana winter. (The Zebrina is just going under the lights in the pot it is in.)

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