August BM's Hideout

Taken from Kobakoba

http://www.kobakoba.co.uk/introduction.htm

Ensete ventricosum 'Montbeliardii' is the non-identical twin of 'Maurelii'. Both cultivars were "born" in the same paper written by M. D. Bois in 1930. 'Montbeliardii' was named in honour of the Marquis de Scey-Montb�©liard de Brun. The Marquis was Embassy Secretary attached to the French legation in Addis Ababa and was responsible for introducing both plants to Europe after M. Maurel had "discovered" them in Ethiopia.
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Fancy it is a banana and is a trunk forming ensete which is different from other ensetes which grow more compactly getting as wide as they are tall.

BM :D

 

thanks for the info BM. interesting.

 

Lovely, really impressed. Thanks for the tour.

 

HI BM

Just come back from my hols and have tuned into this thread. As already been said, your garden is WONDERFUL, FANTASTIC, TO DIE FOR (not just yet!!! :D )

To start my ball rolling on Jungle Fever, I managed to buy an Ensete Maurelli, from Homebase, roughly 4ft high, reduced to �£7.49.

So need a bit of advice!!

I put it in the largest planting container I could find, which happended to be made of tin/metal, because of this,I lined the inside of it with polystyrene around its sides and bits in the bottom, mixed some compost and well rotted manure with some water rention granules and planted it up.

Have I done the right thing with lining the container in this manner?, I was thinking of the winter months and keeping the plant warm against frost and snow. I do plan to incase it in a bit of old carpet in winter, is this a good idea?

GA

 

Hi GA, hope you had had a great holiday. I think I could do with one of those.

Ensete Maurelli is a great banana to fall in love with.

This is some information taken from Christine Smithee & David Constantine at KobaKoba. Banana legends and where I get all my bananas from.

Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii'

This superb plant for the summer garden was "discovered" by J. Maurel, Director of the Alliance Fran�§aise School of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A gentleman named Bois working at the Natural History Museum in Paris described it formally in 1930 and named it Musa sp.? var. Maurelii in honour of J. Maurel. Bois might have named the plant Musa ensete var. Maurelii but thought it was so different that it must be some other but closely related species. As the result of taxonomic revisions in 1947 and 1953 it could be seen that our plant belonged to Ensete ventricosum albeit an unusual, richly coloured form of that species. The fact that it is so unusual coupled with the fact that the name Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' seems never formally to have been published leads some people, wrongly, to call it Ensete maurelii. Plants called Ensete ventricosum 'Rubrum' or 'Atropurpureum' are also 'Maurelii'.


The base colour of the plant is green but suffused with shades of red so dark sometimes as to be almost black. The upper surface of the leaves is dark green overlain with rich chocolate-brown towards the leaf edges and the midrib is a dark rich red. The under surface of the leaves is flushed orange-red and again the midrib is darker and richer in colour. The effect of the leaves viewed with the sun behind them is superb. It is probably best grown in a container, as large as you can manage, rather than being grown in the ground; it is somewhat less vigorous than "normal" Ensete ventricosum. 'Maurelii' is a fabulous foliage plant for the summer garden. Although it must be overwintered under protection it is best appreciated outdoors. The spectacular effect of the plant is rather lost if it is kept in the greenhouse or conservatory in the summer. At Hestercombe Gardens near Taunton in Somerset a 'Maurelii' is planted against the house in a sheltered corner provided by the south wall and a buttress and is overwintered in situ wrapped in sacking.
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I have never managed to overwinter them because of the stop and start springs we have had the last few years. Rot has been my biggest problem becasue of the re-freezing with late frosts on the lead leaf.

I have the trunk forming Ensete ventricosum 'Montbeliardii'. This is very similar and also a whopper. I bring this in every year into the house and it does well on a weekly/bi-weekly watering regime. I simply cut off the lead leaf every time it hits the ceiling !!! Until it goes back outside in late May.

If you can't be bothered with all that I have in the past potted it year one and the planted it out the following year during which time it gets to a good size. I then leave it to it own devices and replace in the spring with another potted one if the ground planted one perishes. At about �£10 a plant you can't go wrong in doing this.Thats what I did with this one...




BM :D

 

HI BM

The lead leaf, is that the one in the middle of an outer leaf?, sorry for sounding so dumb!!

 

Sorry GardenAngel thats not what I was trying to say and I have re-read it and it doesn't read right, sorry.

I usually bring it in with about 3 leaves or so left on, so it can continue to grow healthily.

I try to keep 2 to 3 leaves on it but as each new leaf emerges I remove the outer leaf (oldest)

By the end of the winter the new leaves that emerge bend on the ceiling so I cut the top of the leaf ( about a third) to save the paintwork.

If you do this make sure the plant does not over hang any wooden furniture as they perspire at night and can leave damaging water drip marks on furniture.

Hope that makes more sense, although Im not up to full caffine levels yet :rolleyes:

BM

 

Thanks BM!!

I'll just have to find a corner for it in the living room this winter I suppose!!!