damaclese

now that the night time temps. have cooled off every thing is growing like Gang busters. my Dwarf Brazilian has grown over a ft in the last week but its racing to bloom i can tell to bad its so late in the yea.r the Ae Ae is putting out huge leafs as well as the I Creams. the KM5 has grown 4ft this summer i can tell thats going to be a tall one. the dwarf William's is looking good but hasn't grown all that tall but its packed with leafs and pups. and my rarest the HY Brazilian is growing nice sized leafs but not that fast but its in a high level of shade

yours is looking good. what are you feeding that big boy? its practically doubled in size in just a couple of weeks. looks like you are getting some of the low humidity burning on older leafs that i get. don't sweat that they seem to keep growing no mater how ugly they get at times. we should get better foliage now lets hope its a warm winter :-)

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Velutina

Thanks Paulo! I just sprinkled on some Miracle Grow "shake n' feed" somebody gave me as a gift. I generally just use an All-purpose rapid release fertilizer, but this slow-release has worked well. I'll be adding a nice layer of manure today too.

Trying to battle the heat and humidity has been a struggle. The leaves on the Ensete that are burned get full sun into the mid-afternoon. The heat from the sun just dries them out and they sag until they get shade in the afternoon. It's hard to tell from the photo, but there is a 40 gallon aquarium behind the Ensete, hidden amongst the palms. I mainly have it there to help keep the plants warmer though the winter (especially the king palm in the back corner), but it helps keep the humidity up as well. it will be heated during winter nights.



Can't wait to see what our plants do in the next few months!

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damaclese

watch out for mosquito's we have them bad in some places i don't get as much burning now i water often throw out the day it helps and i have mulched around the plants even the potted ones as they get older they adjust to the low humidity but some will always have brown edges my Ae Ae gets that way i try spraing their foliage down but you cant do it enough to make that big a difference i think you have to grow for fruit not looks but some look good the Dwarf Brazilian looks grate and never really burns

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damaclese

well its late September and the High desert Bananas are for the most part doing well finally planted that last Ice Cream the big one its grown 2ft in 2 months and the leafs are magnificently big and boldly green as a mater of fact since i switched to the high power firt every thing has been growing to its full potential i wish i had this stuff at the beginning of the spring we have had some pretty heavy winds this last month or so and most of the bananas have sustained damage the Ae Ae lost all its lower leafs and every plant has fringey leafs but still the keep growing as if nothing has happened at all the Ae seams to be the most affected but as if mentioned in the past i over fertilized it so i back of for a bit to long i fertilized today so hopefully it will start back up with its rapid growth again and thats right my Ae Ae grows just as fast as my other Bananas i am not sure why every one thinks they are slow growers? its been my experience there just higher then average feeders so if you fertilize properly i don't see why any one cant get the leaf ever 4 days i get when i feed it right
well i watered much more this year 3 times a day for the potted plats and twice for the in ground plants they did vary well how ever i think i have an out brake of black fungi growing on most of the potted plants so I'm treating that with a fungicide for fruiting plants an hopefully that will cure that problem funny but i thought it not possible to get black fungous in the desert but with the high rate of water i was doing its no wonder at all all keep you all posted on that
so don't think it cant happen here in the hot desert!
well be setting up a temp green house for most of the potted plants as there to young to make it threw the winter the Ae Ae is coming in thou i don't have pups yet so i don't want to take the chance of loosing it and it didn't like the cool spring it had do to my rushing it out side when the night time temps were still in the low 60s
tried lots of new plants this year to go with the Banana beds some worked some didn't the biggest surprise was the Sweet potato vines i planted under many of the Bananas they took over i planted two different kinds the dark purple ones and the lime green ones both did exceptionally well will be growing them again the Neighbores loved them said they were the best they had ever seen even my Nieghbore that speaks vary little English told me he loved all the Bananas and that it reminded him of home that really made me feel good to know that my gardens made some one feel at home in a strange land so growing in the desert as hard as it can be at times has its rewards
well thats all for this post i have more to say but this will take an hr just to edit so all end here until next time my faithful readers
Paul

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damaclese

the second half of my blog will be posted later today or tomorrow promise

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Bananaman88

Sounds like your garden is kicking butt, Paul!

damaclese

thanks it did better this year but its by no means were i want it to be next year im going to consintrate on creating vary tidy and more compact looking beds i want bananas but i dont want a jungal so as the Bananas have matured i treat them like a tree with underplantings its just that some of the things i planted were just to untidy for me so all get rid of that stuff and try a few things diffirent no more melons there to unrouly every time i would try to train a vine it would just move back to were it ues to be aslow no zinuas they just get to flopy and unlike colder places ones there growing they are there forever i cut down the caster been it was a gigantic vireaty and got to over 12 ft i need the space for my Dwarf willams so that made thing look better i would like to try that red smal caster been iv seen it in some of the pictures here on the ORG if i ever find one or two the Banana beds are all about being red and green i uesd the perpul vins and that workd out grate they stay compact for a sweet potato and you get food too always a bones as far as im consernd any ideas for underplantings weree shade it prity prevalent east sid of my house?

PS i forgot or i never asked you what hapend to your Ae Ae?

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Velutina

How are everyones bananas doing this winter? Here are a few pics of mine.

November 2009



December 12, 2009


I'm hoping for a mild winter so they can all get off to a good start in the spring!

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Adam

Bananaman88

Hey, Paul...just saw your response above from back in Sept. My Ae-Ae didn't make it.

damaclese

you dont want to see my Ae Ae its conpleatly stoped growing i have no idea why i hope it makes it untill i can plant in in the spring as far as how my Bananas that are outsid are doing they look like hell LOL but im not worred and i dont want a bunch of plants i have to baby so what makes it makes it

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