Ensete 'maurelii'

I'm glad you appear to have a couple come through Peter, that proves if treated correctly even comparatively small ensete can come through.

I do think Ensete should not be confused with Musa, which, just my thoughts, I would not think will survive the drying out process.
My maurelli is now putting out new leaves, its been pretty dry but frost free, my basjoos, in pots, seemed unhappy being dry, even though just frost free.

Bearing in mind Ensete can survive some frost if dry, whereas basjoo dies down to the root, it makes you wonder which is actually the hardiest?

Freeze a basjoo root and its dead.

 

Pete , like you I was thinking that basjoo wouldn`t have survived in a dry state ...
For the last 4 years I bought 3/4 basjoo every years , planted and spent a fortune for straw and mesh to wrap them up , they never survived , no even come back from the roots , untill now ,
it actually took me 15 minutes to lift them out , clean the roots , cut the leaves but leave one or two uncut , just to check if they needed water , the same leaves that trigged them to wake up , pot them up and move in a frost free place , didn`t put a single drop of water till last week , the leaves keep growing to the ceiling of the greenhouse ....

I did learn a lot from the forum and you guys, even if every years keep making mistake , but learning from it , what I learn this year is that I`ve lost more plants by following classic overwintering systems , that try new way of overwintering .......

 

Sal, basjoo is not hardy, I dont know why people keep coming up with statements like "its root hardy", the roots are not hardy, if they get frosted they die, the only reason they say root hardy is because the roots dont freeze if in the ground.

Also the plant needs to be fairly large to come through the kinds of winters we have been having recently, even if protected with straw, the stems need to be a couple of years old to be thick enough.
A young single stemmed plant, planted in spring, is very unlikely to have made a large enough root mass to be able to come back from the roots should the stems be killed off.

I do keep basjoo on the dry side if in pots, but as you say its best to leave a few green leaves, total dehydration is not what they like, so keeping green in winter is what I was saying.
Unlike PeterS Ensete plants.

 

Pete - how did you keep your 'Maurelli' was it frost free with some leaves on - and did it stay green and grow very slowly.

I think I made a mistake in trying to overwinter mine in a cut down state, and then fiercely heating. Its possible that all the damage was done at the heating stage. I think it might have been better to overwinter them like a Canna - ie fractionally damp but with some leaf, and let them wake up naturally.

 

Mine was still in a pot Peter, so I just dried it off, cut off some of the foliage and kept it frost free, it had leaves during the winter but didn't grow.
A couple of weeks ago I stared giving it just a little water as the greenhouse temperatures warmed up.

Its now made a couple of new leaves but misshapen.
That will change once things warm up and I can pot it on, its in a 12 pot.

My thoughts are to move it up into a slightly bigger pot before planting out for the summer in June.
next winter I'm likely to be trying your experiment of drying it right off and keeping it cold all winter.

 

Just to add, and its only a thought, but I'm thinking when waking up a cutdown Ensete without roots maybe dry heat rather than humidity might stop rotting.

 

Pete , mine are in a really bad state and worst for worst , this is what i did today ,
cut the ensete to a fresh point and left them upside down , near the heating ....
they have been too long in the cutdown state , that humidity have entered deep inside e slowly rotting the plant down .

Pete , you are right indeed about the basjoo it`s actually your tip that made me treat them as a tender plant rathen then an hardy plant ,
what we are reading around it`s a different story , sold as hardy banana with the fairytail of roots hardy to -20c if covered that makes all bad ......
I blamed the cold winters and the size of my musa in the past , that only made me wanted to try again and finally win .

 

I think you are right. The main reason for the humidity was that the best way to get the temperature up was to close the box. The temperature would have been lower with an open box. But then I should have just waited a bit longer until the weather warmed up.

 

That's what I have done. Mine were probably large enough to overwinter "dry", but I had space in the conservatory, and the plants were new (bought as 1L pots last May), so seemed easier to keep them "growing". I've been watering quite generously for probably a month, and all the Bananas (Some Ensetes, some Musa sikkis) in pots in conservatory had a small handful of Chicken Manure pellets 10 days ago. Not much head-room height for them to grow new leaves without hitting the conservatory roof though!

Consensus on HTUK is to pot them up dry until they start to shoot, otherwise there is a higher risk that they rot :( Mind you ... I've never tried it!

I suggest not leaving them upside down for more than 24 hours - otherwise newly growing leaves will try to grow right-way-up and push out of the sides of the pseudo-stem, or develop the "strangles"

 

Kristen i really wish , even they would grow right way up , but at the moment no move yet .....they do look really bad , but will not give up yet .

look they are just turning in to mush ....




overall the basjoo kept in the greenhouse and treat like Pete suggest (tender plant)
are doing great , need to cut down the leaves every week.



and the puppys as well ; )




overall still have 2 small maurelii and a montbeliardii , plus the guy from the market already told me that in 2 weeks will start to get few from holland at £2/3 each ...

 

Something when wrong , today I`ve binned my 3 giant maurelii and the 2 montbeliardii
I had.
I can`t belive myself , by February they where actually coming back to life
and then slowly they start to turn into mesh .......
I`ve noticed the same sort it`s happen to the big calocasia I had and the canna just don`t want to wake up.
I`ve actually tryed to look what was the problem , I found load of water inside the plant that lead to a slow rotting process , I think that the heavy rain last year have done a part , the cold spring have done the rest , overall still have the ventricosum , lasiocarpa and few more little ones .....

I do have the basjoo in place but my garden without the maurelii look empty .

I though that last year was bad , but this year has been far the worst one ever .....

 

Dave Brown (on HTUK) has had the same problem. I think need to be 100% sure that root activity is well under way before watering etc. otherwise they will rot. In normal years I guess there is enough light / warmth to make that happen more readily?