sirdoofus

So I have been growing this plant for about 3 years now and absolutely love it!!

I live on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada and was hopeful this might be a hardy plant I could over winter outdoors.

Unfortunately for me, that has not been the case. I did start these from seed so who knows what characteristics other growers might get out of their plants started in a similar fashion. I have not been able to successfully overwinter a plant outdoors in a manner that would make it viable for that purpose.

However, other than that, it does really well here, grows very fast (Dwarf Orinoco, which might be considered a worthier specimen for hauling in and out, for me was very slow growing), so far, faster than my basjoo, it is beautiful and by all indications it should get reasonably big. And supposedly it does have a tasty, edible, seedy fruit....but I am not holding my breath on ever finding that out here, the seasons are just too short.

It is of course more tender than basjoo and will show frost damage at slightly warmer temperatures, however it does seem significantly hardier than Dwarf Orninoco - last year frost that killed all the leaves and the tops of the p-stems on my in ground DO, only slightly damaged some of the more exposed leaves on my HH.

I have found it is easy to overwinter in the garage as a potted plant, provided it is established enough in the pot, but haven't tried bare root storing a larger specimen. I will give that a shot this year.

Overall, I do think this is a worthy plant for northern growers, if one is willing to do what is needed to keep it alive over winter.









The following pics might give you an idea of how big these guys might get in a single season (it was a long, warmer than average year up here). This one was a single stem potted plant that probably had about 1.5-2 ft of P-stem when planted in the spring. On the second pic you can see a set of 2 handed bypass pruners sitting at the base and the Red Orach (dark burgundy) to the left of the p-stems is about 5 feet tall at the tip, although the tops are somewhat obscured by the lower leaves of the banana.

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Who keeps calling me nuts??

beam2050

very, very nice looking plant. thanks

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npk of wood ash 0/1/3 to 0/3/7

npk of banana leaf ash 1.75/0.75/0.5