BadPun

Or at least that's what I'm calling my 10' x 10' bed

I'm trying to decide exactly how many plants I can/should reasonable squeeze in here without long-term deleterious effects to the plants.

If 3 feet is the minimum distance between plants I could fit 9 plants in this space in 3 rows of 3. Does this seem ridiculously crowded? If so what would be a more reasonable configuration? 5 in a configuration like you rolled a five on a die? The bananas I'm thinking of for this space are,

Manzano
Praying Hands
Kru
Orninoco
Mysore
Goldfinger
Itinerans v. Gigantea
Dwarf Namwah

Cheers-

Andy

klemmthamm

Just my opinion, but... I think the five configuration sounds like it would look the best. BUT I also like the idea of having a mat so thick you can't see through to the other side which is what I think you would have after a few months if you did the 3 rows of 3.

Sorry not much help I know

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BadPun

Heh, I know what you mean... I figure I can convince my wife we really need a monkey once I have this little patch of jungle

Any other opinions?

MediaHound

made me look, ha!

You might want to scratch the praying hands from the list as they get big and thick and take a lot of wingspan.

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MediaHound

Which of those do you have already and which do you plan on getting?

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BadPun

I have all of these bananas already, just trying to find the best place for them... Many of these I got from Scot

I can certainly put the praying hands somewhere else for sure, though right now it's planted at one of the corners of this area.

Magilla Gorilla

Create the jungle!! More is better!

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Andrew

Bananaman88

Sounds a bit crowded to me. Keep in mind that if you crowd them too much, it will effect fruit production. If that is your goal, I'd keep it to about 3-4 plants in that area. Even though it may look like there's plenty of room at first, once the really start leafing out it will get crowded quickly. Good luck!

BadPun

Aye, fruit production is definitely a driver in my decision...

So what does affect fruit production due to crowding? Is it competition for water and food amongst the roots from the various plants? Couldn't you just feed and water more in this case? Is there any empirical data on minimum distance between plants with no ill effects on fruit production?

It does sound like I need to thin out the number of total plants as I'd assumed...

If I do 5 I can arrange them so that each plant is 4' from the nearest plant and 2' from the concrete edge or 3.5' and 2.5', respectively. With 4 plants in this area I could get away with 5' away from nearest plant and 2.5' from edge (or many other variations of this)...