Giant banana - Ensete montbeliardii

Have any of you guys got an idea where i can purchase such a montbeliardii ? Jungle are not dispatching their plants until spring and Amulree are out of stock. Also any Siam Ruby's ?
Thanks terry

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner Terry

 

I would wait until Spring and get one from Jungle. Of all the Monty's and Maurelii's that I have seen I reckon Jungle's plants are the best. If you want "cheap" then wait until the Sheds get them in around June time (although may only be Maurelii, rather than Monty)

If you get one now you will just have to overwinter it, and they are prone to rot (with warmth there will not be enough light, without light they need to be stored dry, stored dry when small may mean they don't have enough stored energy).

I think that Amulree sell them, come the Spring, but my experience has been that their discontinued lines are left on their website (showing "out of stock") indefinitely - so "out of stock" does not necessarily mean "coming back into stock anytime soon"

Just checking: but have you considered the height of Monty vs. Maurelii for Winter storage? (actually, more particularly Spring when the new leaves appear but its still too cold for them to go out. Monty's upright habit needs a lot more head room IME)

is Siam Ruby a Musa sikkimensis Red Tiger perhaps?

 

Hi Terry and welcome to the forum , at this time of the year no where really , plus i would not suggest to order anything untill March , too cold for the banana .

but from March on there many Thai seller that sell rare banana or wait untill the new season for amulree to restock .

can suggest you a site that sell red tigers?

 

godd day chaps.
Thanks sal73 for suggestion(tigers) but i wish to try a Siam. And Kristen thanks for info. I do have several Maurelii's and believe it or not i just brought them indoors last year(overwinter), central heating, etc. and the things kept growing no problems.
I just bought some nice Aeonium 'VOODOO' s from Amulree, free postsage and i bid the price down to £6.00 each instead of the £10.as advertised. Xmas, these stores are up for a bit of hangling.... but still can't get my mittens on Monty... Jungle have just dropped their prices for seeds only by 30% and free P+P but this weekend only.. thanx chaps for your input.
terry

 

Hi Terry and welcome - sorry only just caught up with this thread.

I have nothing to add being new to Ensete just this year. But I was watching a program on Ethiopia where they grew Ensete, where they eat the base and some of the stem. And they said a strange thing - that you could bury an Ensete for anything up to 7 years and it wouldn't rot and the food would keep perfectly.

That certainly says something - but I am not sure quite what !, or how it applies to us.

 

As I understand it (open to being corrected though ) the Ensete is able to go into dormancy through drought. In this state it can survive some cold, but it must be dry. Presumably the reason the Ethiopians bury them for up to 7 years would be in times of prolonged drought.

I'm sure if you did that in wet conditions they would just rot.

They will survive indoors (central heated room) but their leaves drip, which some spouses may have a sense of humour failure over!

Easiest way to store is lift, remove all roots, chop all leaves off, upside down for a few days [not more] to drain, then dry carefully (wrap wet surfaces with newspaper etc) and then store somewhere frost free - loft will do if it is not above the insulation layer and thus prone to freeze. Advice in the UK is to store them right-way-up to prevent them getting the "strangles" with the Roller trying to come out of the side ... but ... in USA they store them horizontally in the crawl-space under their houses, so vertically may no be required. (Leaving leaves on will help them dry out more quickly, if you can man-handle them, and "house" them, in that state until they have dried)

Ensete get very big very quickly. Its unlikely that you will be able to treat them as house plants in the second Winter, certainly not after that.

Contra to my suggestion above! I am growing on a Monty and a Maurelli, for their first Winter, in my conservatory. They both came from Jungle in May as 1L pots, both have about the same length of pseudo stem, but the total height (including pot) of the Monty is 3.2M whereas the Maurellii is 2.4M. They will be taller in Winter 2 of course ...

 

That is a lot of growth Kristen - were you feeding them like mad? You have made me even more desirous of getting a Monty. Incidentally how can we propagate Ensetes?

Going back to the burying them for 7 years - I think the point for us is that if I kept one dry in a dormant state for 7 years - would it still grow afterwards - or would I have to eat it.

 

Guys i will keep an open eye at my local garden center , if I only knew I would have bought few more monty, they where only £3 each , most annoing is the fact that many have bought the plant as annual and is maybe they are just dying in some garden.

 

Chop the tops off, down to the ground, which forces them to "pup", with luck will get several pups. Best to do this before it flower

[/quote]if I kept one dry in a dormant state for 7 years - would it still grow afterwards - or would I have to eat it[/quote]

Yes

I'm still not convinced that they are the same provenance as Jungle's - but I can't argue with the price

 

Kristen to be honest , is still thanks to your thread if i realised the difference between the monty and the maury , they where all in the same place eccept for the monty was labeled as ethiopian banana and the maurelii was named as maurelii red banana , the monty leaves where really long and the difference was the tips of the leaves ending like an arrow .
I personally thing that they all coming from Holland as my garden center buys all the left over , same as the market guy .
overall bought 2 monty 1 green ensete 1 maurelii with a different shade and 1 lasiocarpa .....really don`t know where i will put them all

 

Well ... the ones for Jungle certainly can't be classes as "chip as chips", so either Jungle will stop selling them ... or they are a better strain perhaps? Time will tell. Certainly v.impressed with mine

 

Kristen - did you feed yours heavily?

 

No, don't think so. "well fed" perhaps, rather than "heavily fed"?

I gave it some 1/2-to-Full strength Miracle Grow when I remembered. Probably once a fortnight. Also water when I remembered (which would have been often enough, except for a few of "forgotten times" - what I mean is no automatic irrigation).

They were in large plunged pots (to make it easy (HaHaHa!) to lift this first Autumn. They will be planted out in future, and then dug up for the Winter. Wet summer of course, but that might not have helped, on its own, given that they were in pots.

 

I found this on the internet from http://www.plantdelights.com/Banana-Trees-for-the-Garden/products/494/ which is an excellent article on bananas

Unfortunately, Ensete almost never produces offsets unless the rhizome is injured.