Getting Ready For Winter

Guys be honest , I`m not really follow the videos I`ve posted , as mine are going in the greenhouse , I got some bucket with hole , I do put the bananas upside down , just to get rid off the water , the when they are dry , I plant them in the bucket with some compost ......for the simple reason that they are start to grow from March and by the time the will go back to the garden they already have leaves.

Same with calocasia , if the under glass and even the temperature drop to -3 inside the Gh , they are still alive and growing.......sure will post few picture , before , during and after.

 

Thanks Kristen - for the suggestions. Because links can go dead after a while I would be interested in saving the videos themselves on my machine. I think that video sites don't allow you to do this, but I have had a Goggle and found that there are ways with programs such as Keepvid and Savevid. I will look into it a bit further. As I will probably only want to save two vids a year, I am reluctant to pay for a program such as Keepvid.

With respect to overwintering tuberous and rhizomous plants, there seems to be a simple principle at work. If they are to be kept dormant they need to be kept very dry. And the best way is to lift, wash off all soil and thoroughly dry by hanging upside down for a while - as you would for a Dahlia. I suspect that this must apply to many different types of plant.

Alternatively, you can keep some plants in the green (ie growing slowly), but you must ensure that they are also pretty dry, and you can do that by using the foliage to dry out the compost.

I have just lifted my Ensete Maurelli and some Cannas by the method in the video. It said you can cut off the Ensete roots as they will not be needed by the dormant plant. I presume this also applies to dormant Cannas, and can you also treat Hedychiums the same way?

 

Peter if you use Firefox you can download this add on.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/easy-youtube-video-downl-10137/

 

Ah, I see. Good point / idea

Dunno, I'm planning to "keep my growing gently, and "only just moist"

My Canna Mystique was 8' tall and flowering, in the Conservatory, in about May from having grown on tick-over all winter.

Not much good for someone wanting to store them on a shelf in the garage though

 

Thanks Pete - I don't have Firefox, but I will look into that.

 

I disagree. You need to keep some moisture around the tubers. They will dry and shrivel if left till April with no moisture at all. Same for bulbs, tubers, rhizomes. They are living plants and need water. 6 months of nothing and you will end up with nothing.

 

Nice day yesterday so I pulled all my plants out of the greenhouse to check them over and remove any dead material (no room to move round them so they have to be moved ),

• the Cannas are drying nicely, the compost is just moist and some of the leaves are 'yellowing', not signs of rot or mould - looking good so far
• the red Ensete Banana still looks as healthy as it did when I put it in there (fanatastic in fact ), which is fine but the compost doesn't seem to be drying as quickly as the Canna pots so its decision time and I think initially I'm going to reduce the pot size and pot it up in drier compost before any rot sets in underneath because its sat in cold compost.
• my Erythrinas have plenty of woody stem now, a good 2ft and they're drying nicely, just slightly moist compost now.
• all other stuff still looking good too.

When I moved the stuff in there originally the condensation was a nightmare for the first week and I was really worried about rot setting in because the air would be too moist but since I put some moisture traps in there they have worked a treat, they're invaluable its much much drier now, had to empty one yesterday and put some new crystals in it

As we're apparently 'promised' our first proper frost (below 0 degrees) on Monday night I will wrap some bubblewrap, fleece and hessian sacking around the pots over the next day or two just to add to their winter protection

 

Not than mine will probably be large enough to divide, but I've read suggestions that tubers should be cut/divided after lifting and before drying over the winter, rather than cut immediately before planting. What's best?

 

I always divide tubers/ rhizomes in spring.
I can see that dividing now might give the cut surface time to heal, but in spring if you just leave a day, the cut surface dries out much faster than now.

I find it much easier to dry out, cut off most of the top growth, and just leave stacked up in a cool dry place.
Then in spring, I tip out the pots and look for healthy divisions, quite often on cannas and gingers there are already signs of new growing points which makes the decisions easier.
I left a large tub of Hedychium gardnerianum in full leaf all last winter, new shoots did not appear until nearly July and its trying to flower now.
Those that I cut back to soil level after drying out all grew new shoots in May and flowered earlier.
I'm not saying this is a proper controlled experiment, but I tend to think leaving the non flowered growth on gingers might not be of any real asset.

 

last Winter I kept the foliage on my Hedychium greenii, potted & in the conservatory, and it formed "bulbils" at the end of the leaf stalks, and they are now large enough plants that they should flower next year. H. greenii flowers relatively early, so probably not important to trim that back to force it along more quickly. Don't think any other Hedychiums do the leaf-bulbil thing though?

 

Not grown that one Kristen, I know they do have variable types of growth habit, some evergreen some not.

 

Do you one to try?

 

Yes please

 

If you are keeping indoor but yet cold place, I found that useful in the past, but it need not to be too cold to be able to work.

a wooden box - I used old deep drawers that i found
one layer of perlite or anything to insulate than a precompost mix - leaves , animal waste , what ever makes a good fast compost on top of that you can have plant the banana tree or keep it in a pot and around the plant/pot another layer of perlite/ vermiculite/ expanded clay / coir to insulate .

the idea that if it is warm enough for the compost , the compost will create 2-5 degrees while composting-

not a new trick, I know, worked for me when doing cuttings inthe winter so i guess can help if you planing to keep it in the grage/ greenhouse.

I can see myself having a polytunnel in few years time full of muck from the diary farm haha .

 

Salamander - I do agree with you. I was emphasising the need to dry out rhizomes before storing for winter, and didn't make myself clear. I understand that tubers and bulbs can be kept pretty dry over winter, if cool, but I appreciate that rhizomes are more sensitive and do need some moisture. My main problem has been in storing Cannas in wet soil and then finding that they rotted.

Pete - I am interested in that comment. I left both gingers and Chasmanthe in the house last winter, under low level grow lights. They both thrived and continued to grow, but have never flowered. I did this for two years with the Chasmanthe, and am convinced that it has become out of sync with our seasons. I think I will overwinter them both as frost free.