Strelitzia from roots

Hi all , guys i need a bit of help and advice , last year I`ve planted 3 strelizias in the greenhouse , has we had a nice warm spring and decent summer they grown very fast , untill the big freeze of february kill them all ....
Today i was cleaning the greenhouse and replece the dead plants with some annual , but I`ve descovered that actually the roots are still alive and have become huge , 2 of them still have the base stem , i gave a clean cut and it was actually fresh , but one didn`t had any base stem but just a big mass of roots.
will the roots produce new shoot ? or i just need to bin it ?

 

It's up to you Sal ... but you must remember it will be 6-7 years before you see a flower.

 

the plants are 5 years old at the moment , the flower it`s not a priority is just the fact if the plant will produce new leaves or it will be a sort of blind roots .

 

Its worth a try Sal - costs nothing.

If it does regrow from well established roots, it raises two questions.
a) Will it grow fast - ie in proportion to its age and root size? and
b) if the roots are five years old will this reduce the period of time to flower relative to one grown from seed?

Because I like the plant shape so much and regard the flowers as just the icing on the cake, I am tempted to try growing Strelitzia nicolai to get a bigger quicker foliage plant. I won't be growing it to full height, but otherwise are there any likely problems?

 

I've never heard of root cuttings from strelitzia, I'm tending to think you need the crown in tact.
It's the kind of plant you can divide, but I dont think it suckers.

 

I totally agree with you Pete , what is look strange is the fact that the roots are still growing , I lost a strelizia before and usually the root just dry out , but this one it seams that didn`t stop growing , look at the picture is the one in the middle plus few more roots bit but I would say it`s the same size as the one on the right. When I planted them the roots where exactly the same all 3 in a 6" pot each and all had the same lenght , for some reasons now are all different

 

Sal, some plants are more vigorous than others, its natural selection when grown from seed.
Never heard of any other means of propagation for strelitzia other than division or seed.

 

I think I didn`t explain very well , my point is should I keep the roots or bin them because no plant will ever come back , i don`t want to propagate them .

 

Sal, its up to you but my thoughts are, nothing will grow without a crown, some kind of top growth still alive.
If you just have roots, in my opinion they wont produce growth buds, but who knows until you try.

 

my though was just that without the crown the plant was dead , but it seams that the roots are still growing , I was thinking that maybe is better to pot them rathen that leave in the greenhouse as I was reading that confine the root will stimulate the flower , I had the same story with the monstera dead to the crown digget out and there are new growing all over the roots . It`s such a pretty plant that is really painful to bin the roots .

 

Sal, it's painful to bin a lot of things I may 'think' are still alive ... but I do and kiss them goodbye. Then I turn my attention to something that may really need my love and attention ...

 

Thank you Victoria , it`s hard to say goodbye to a plant like strelizia expecially because it`s ever so slow to grow and almost a miracle when it flower over here in uk , the weather at the moment dasn`t help a lot as well , but the it`s the reward of the challenge that make all this worth .

 

The ones on the left and right look as if they're still joined together, whereas the ones in the centre just look like a collection of separated roots - is that correct? If so, they do look rather healthy, so my gut feeling is to discard the one in the centre and pot up the other two.
The previous owners left behind a BoP that had taken a freeze. When I emptied the pot the roots were as mushy as the crown. Your roots look viable.
Remember, Musa will come back from a freeze by way of pups (so I've read on the Banana forum) so this will be an interesting experiment. A Strelitzia will also divide naturally at the crown, but what sets that process off I don't know. Mine divided before flowering.

 

Thank you Keith , that was my point , the middle one hasn`t got a crown , but the rooots are looking really healthy , that is what it made me think and have a go , I`ve replanted in the greenhouse but close to the home wall...finger cross , I`ve tryed to potting but no luck as they are about 2 feet long and don`t have any pot that size.

 

Chuck the centre one - it's surviving on the nutrients that it has stored. It's quite possible that the same applies to the other two as well, but they do at least have enough material to make it worth investigating.