flywoman

Hello all. I am new to this, so bear with me a little. I have read a lot of great information here, but still have a few questions.

I am a high school science teacher with a greenhouse attached to my classroom. I am in Illinois on the border between a zone 5 and a zone 6. I have purchased 6 different varieties of bananas. They are all small at this point (12-30"). Some are cold hardy (basjoo), some are not (ice cream, mysore). All the plants were transplanted into 8" pots with a soil mixture of dirt, peat moss, and sand.

Can anyone tell me if I am on the right track? The plants will get a reasonable amount of sun and the temperature and humidity will stay high. How often should I water and fertilize them? Can I expect growth during the winter in the greenhouse?

Any other thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks,
FW

sandy0225

In the spring for sure you will want to transplant them into larger pots. but since you are going to be carrying them over winter in Illinois, which is very similar to where I live, that size should be fine. If they are potted too large in the winter in a cool greenhouse and they get overwatered a time or two, it's disaster (root rot).
I'm not wild about your soil choice, but if your temps stay up, they might do ok in that. It sounds like it would really hold a lot of water, good for summer, but bad for winter. You really want something neutral in ph and with high porosity like Promix HP with biofungicide to carry them over winter and fend off root rot. Are they staying wet now when you water them or are they draining well? If they're not draining well, you need to repot them before winter into more appropriate media. If they're drying out well in a couple of days between waterings, that would probably work.
Most of the bananas don't really grow much over winter here. They will stay alive, might lose a few leaves, but as soon as January hits and the days start getting longer they will start growing a little bit.Then by the end of February and first of March they will start growing as the daytime temps rise.
They will need little fertilizer after the weather turns cold. And they will need little water, especially on those dark cloudy days. I find in the greenhouse with med. humidity, I often need to water only once every week/10 days in December and January. It depends on how sunny it is. The bananas seem to like to stay root-dry in the winter, but in an area with humidity, to help keep spider mites down.
Now some of this information will need adjusting if your greenhouse temps are warmer than mine. They will stay growing longer on each end of the season if it's warmer, and if it's really warm you might see growth all year, although much slower in the winter when there's not as much sun.
Mine will occasionally get down as low as 45 at night in January, when it's -10 outside and windy. I'm shooting for 50 degrees, but sometimes if it's super cold, or worse cold and windy at the same time, my heater just doesn't keep up well (working on that!).
I usually use 20-20-20-fertilizer on my bananas at 150-200 ppm once a month/6 weeks or so during the dark cold months. I use a tropical foliage special 24-8-16 by plant marvel during the summer months 400 ppm once a week. I kind of start them gradually on that in June with 200 ppm once a week, then up it as the temps rise. And similarly, decline it as the temps fall. I usually switch back over to the 20-20-20 in October/November depending on the growth/temps. You probably could get by with the 20-20-20 all year, but I just like the extra kick in the summer.
Some of the bananas from places like Hawaii are more cold sensitive than others.
I hope this helps. If you have any other questions let me know.

__________________
Sandy Burrell



Northern Tropics Greenhouse
1501 East Fuson Road
Muncie, IN 47302
www.northerntropics.com


specializing in bananas, heirloom tomatoes and water gardening plants~
check out our new online store at our website!

the flying dutchman

Hi and welcome Flywoman. There is nothing I can add to Sandy's great post.








Ron

flywoman

Dutchman: Thanks For the Welcome!

Sandy: Thank you for all of the thoughts and ideas. Your ideas on soil were of particular concern to me. I understand what you are saying and will monitor the plants closely for the next few weeks before making a decision. I watered yesterday morning and the plants are dry down an inch or so. My greenhouse does stay warmer than your does, I believe. We heat our building using a forced fater system from a boiler. The greenhouse is an attached part of the building that has a bank of heaters running under the benches along one entire side (the outide wall). Because of this, the GH stays at about 80F all winter. It may dip to the 70's at night, but rarely below that. Only occasionally do we have a significant drop. This will occur in the next month or so when the weather finally changes to cold. The boilers will not be on and so that night (or two) it may drop into the 50's or even 40's for a night. This happens once or twice a year. Someimes in the spring when they have shut the boilers off and we get a cold snap it will happen again.

Regarding the Promix HP. I looked it up on the internet and can order it (although I get killed on shipping). What type of places should I try locally to find it? Would a Lowes/Menards/Walmart carry it? Or should I call some of the greenhouses around? Also, does it have a fungicide in it? Or should I add one to it?

Thanks again,
FW

flywoman

What about Metromix 360 for a growing medium. Is anyone familiar with this stuff? I am told it is similar to Promix.

sandy0225

Call around to some local greenhouses. Someone is likely to have it. I suppose some other kind of a high perlite mix would also work, but I have tried other brands and the promix hp with the biofungicide just seems to do the job better in my opinion.
Lowe's/Menards/walmart, none of those places have it. It's not sold in box stores like that.
It has a natural biofungicide in it. So you don't add any.
Your metromix would work if you added perlite to it, but you won't have that added biofungicide. But if it's that warm in there, you might not need it anyway.

__________________
Sandy Burrell



Northern Tropics Greenhouse
1501 East Fuson Road
Muncie, IN 47302
www.northerntropics.com


specializing in bananas, heirloom tomatoes and water gardening plants~
check out our new online store at our website!