Ensete 'maurelii'

Jools I brought a ventricosum at the end of summer.It was about 18" tall at the time. I never even potted it into a bigger pot, just left because it was too late to plant out. Again been left in the conservatory to dry out and it is now growing a new leaf.So there is still hope for yours

 

Sal - considering that your plants are in a cold garage, they are looking remarkable green and healthy.

Dorethy - I hope you are right. I am holding my breath now.

 

I'm with you Joolz, sadly mine's a gonner too, just a large piece of soggy mushy mess , bit gutted to be fair but it wasn't expensive and I will keep an eye for them again when they're back in Morrison's this year

 

Mine was about 4ft high when I dug it up last November and as it was going into a heated geenhouse I just cut all the leaves bar the latest one and trimmed the roots to fit a 18" wide pot, due to temperature rises on sunny days, I haven't left it totally dry.

Although it will have a head start over dried out stored ones it will be too big to do this after another year or so I will either cut back and dry store or start again with another small one.

 

Hopefully some pictures of mine

 

Strongy - its a sort of love/hate relationship. I would love my maurelii to be so big that I couldn't dig it up. But at the same time I would hate my maurelii to be so big that I couldn't dig it up. - if you see what I mean.

How warm was your greenhouse - is frost free enough?

Dorethy - your post just popped up as I was writing - yours look really healthy. Presumably they were some way about frost free (ie 1C)?

 

Forgot to add the middle picture are the 3 ventricosum. They are atm about 1ft including leaf.

 

Hi yes mine were in a heated conservatory over winter.Last summer mine grew to nearly 5ft, including leaves, but by the time I chopped them down was left with a 3ft stem. They were dry potted over winter till recently when I added the compost.

 

When it gets too big you could perhaps try cutting it off at soil-level and seeing if you can get it to "pup"? Or flog it on eBay as "Massive / Humongous / Elephantine" ... all words guaranteed (tm) to drive the price up

My conservatory has fallen to probably 2C, but has only fallen below 4C on a couple of nights, although plenty which have fallen to 4C.

 

Peter, it is heated to 'about' 5c, the Parasene heater doesn't seem to be very reliable.

Kristen, as far as Ebay goes, unless it is a buyer collect posting something that size would be prohibitive (tonnage).

 

Thanks for that info Strongy. 5C is very little different from my own 'frost free' setting - which I understood is about 4C. Its nice to know that they will accept that amount of cold and still be (just) growing.

 

Yup, that's true. Plenty of 50' Palm Trees on eBay though ("Buyer to dig up"). The most recent I saw was encased on concrete !! (Didn't sell, but its right down in Devon too ...)
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/111017029519

Worth a punt, rather than composting it I reckon.

 

At the start of this thread, I said that I was trying to coax my 'Maurelli' back to life having cut off all the leaves and roots and overwintered them just frost free.

Only 2 of the 6 have survived; the others have just rotted. I warmed them up in a heated box, without any light in the same way that I would with an Eddoe. Whilst they were in the box they showed no signs of growth. Then Sal suggested that his needed light. At this point 4 had completely rotted but two showed solid central cores. I don't think the lack of light made much difference as the rotten ones never had solid cores at any time. With no light the cores of the remaining 2 were white, but I removed the outer dead leaves and put them in my lightbox; after about 3 days they have turned green. They are in only slightly damp compost, and today I removed them and to my joy the smaller one, on the right, had started to grow roots. The larger one shows no signs yet - but I am hopeful. Currently they are in my lightbox in a polythene bag. And I am misting them everyday to stop them drying out. No use watering the compost until there are roots.

Pete suggested, I suspect absolutely correctly, that they were probably too small for that treatment. Interestingly its the smallest one that is growing roots - but I think that is just luck.

 

Glad the light worked with you ,
the biggest mistake I`ve made is that I`ve been reading about other peoples and I though that it was the right way to overwintering a maurellii.
It may work for a short period , but in case like this that we are 2 months behind , we really need to take all this in consideration for a future.
Back in march I`ve noticed that my basjoo and 2 maurellii started to grow up , realising that it was the light that trigged them to grow , while I was told to cut all the leaves
from the maurellii and let it dry out without water , the 3 big maurellii I`ve got are rotting off slowly , while the basjoo and the other 2 where I left part of the leaves on are already going strong.

so , no more dry storege but leaves on .

I`ve managed to save 3 out of 4 bananas with the peeling and expose to light trick .

 

I am very grateful to you Sal for pointing out the need for light. There is no question that the light triggered the return to life. But if, as Strongy has pointed out, they can still keep going overwinter at just frost free - that sounds a safer way of keeping them.