tarheeldiver

I have several different varieties of bananas that I have never overwintered before. My orinocos I bareroot and put in my crawlspace and they do great. But I have now added Bordelon, bloods,ice cream, dwarf cavendish, brazillian, siam ruby, basjoo and maureli. I already found out on here the cavendish needs to be potted up and hope for the best with the siam. The bordelon brazillian and basjoo are fairly small less than 3 ft. I am in zone 7.
thanks for all suggestions
greg

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modenacart

I have had good luck with orinoco in the ground wrapped and under the house. My saba, goldfinger, guay namwah and cavendish all died to the corm under the house. So did the raja puri.

bigdog

Greg, I have found that 'Ice Cream' will appear to overwinter fine under the house, only to find out in the spring after planting that the apical meristem has rotted out. Never fails. I have kept Ensete ventricosum and 'Maurelii' under the house with no problems whatsoever. All Ensetes that I've tried in this way have been super easy. If your Musa basjoo is in the ground, just leave it there. Even a small one should do just fine in zone 7, just give it a few inches of mulch for protection. Bring your other 3-footers inside, they are too small to store. Haven't tried 'Brazilian' under the house, but 'Dwarf Brazilian' did fairly well, even at a pretty small size. I don't have any experience with the others, other than M. basjoo, and it was a large corm. It dessicated some, but came out Ok.

bigdog

Be careful with this word! If you leave out the "l", it becomes a vulgar word in Thailand. I learned this the hard way, lol. Also, I found out why some spell it "kluay" and others "gluay." It is actually a hybrid sound between "g" and "k." Kind of like you are saying both of them at the same time. "Kluay" just means "banana" in Thai.

tarheeldiver

Thanks Frank,
I really appreciated your tutorial on storing bananas that is were I learned how to do my orinocos. I have my first bloom this year don't know if the bananas are going to make it or not before cold weather they've been growing for about 2 monthes now. I dread trying to get all my plants in this year as I keep expanding, not nearly as many as you have though! I have a couple of questions I have one orinoco that is about 12 ft. tall with 4 pups about 5 ft tall each should I remove the pups or try to leave them on if possible to get them under the house? I also have a idea for my siam ruby our community center has a heated indoor pool with windows along one side may see if they need some plants to dress up the pool ? Should be warm and humid, think this would work?
greg
Greg

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