New Banana Grove @ heat source

[BILL MA]

Hello everyone,
I'm at it again! Another trip to Florida, This time to drive my grandmother and car home to save her 900 bucks on transport.

Being that far south it's hard if not imposible not to bring things back. I was sure the haul would be limited when I saw all her things, but that didn't stop me from buying the first 2 bananas in florida. One was a large unmarked 7 gallon plant that is most likely is a ice cream banana 5' total with pot, mature plant. The other a 3 gallon red abyssinian about 4 feet. Total cost 27 bucks for both! how could I not buy them. Here was my problem, I lined up nine 5 gal. basjoos for pick-up near Savannah and barely had any room. By the way my grand mothers car is a grand am, not the best plant hauler. But anyway I managed to fit it all in the car along with my gram's 6 months of stuff I wish I had a picture thats all I have to say.

So here we go with the pictures I have. The plot for the grove hand tilled with native soil and compost.


Four bags of manure mixed into the soil under the beds, same on front row.


both rows of plants have 48 feet of heat cable for a few zones boost!!! The name of the cables is GRO QUICK the place I ordered them on line with growers solutions out of Tenn. They have good prices and they ship fast. I think most of my none hardy plants/trees are going to get this treatment as I go. Here's stage one of my winter plans as promised. These cables add a good security for plants that don't like cold feet as well. They also trick things into thinking it's warm out, a condition that NE hasn't experianced yet. I believe in these cables, the ground under the bananas on a 60 degree rainy/cloudy day is 84 degrees and there pushing leaves out already. Five days in the ground. No transplant shock? Maybe a little but since I planted them in the rain and the weather has been cloudy and cool at best. Can't wait to see the hot weather if it ever comes


I feel like a story teller! But, I love planting things out of the ordinary and I want to share my toughts with all of you.

More to come,
Bill

[Jova]

I hope you have better luck than I've had with transplanting your bananas... I moved two basjoo babies that were about 3 feet tall from the south side of my house to my new bed on the east side, and a week later they still look terrible... I'm hoping they recover. Hopefully, yours will take on quickly and not get in the sad shape that mine are. The grove looks really nice! I'm going to look into some of that heating cable that you've got. Best of luck!

[Knnn]

Nice idea with the heaters, with all your prep work those should be a good size by the end of the summer!



Steve

[Okanagan desert-palms]

Bill should be nice to see come the end of September how monstrous those naners will be. Great find on those heating cords.

John

[wxman]

Nice idea on the heating cables. Wish I would of thought of that before I planted all my palms....ugh. Any way to get them in the ground now? LOL.

[Jova]

Now that I've seen these heat cables, I've got visions of myself out in the flower beds digging little bitty trenches and planting that cable all over the place.. and I just got done with all the mulch! Arg!

[BILL MA]

Hello everone,
With the June we have had so far I would say the heat cables are working well. They said on the tv that the last 20 out of 30 days have been cloudy/cool/ and rainy. What a crap start to the summer, it should be 90 right now.

The bananas with the heat source keep growing though about a leave every 5-6 days not bad at all for no sun and these cool temps. It's funny the leaves are a yellowish green but full size, they must be wondering where the sun is too and why they are growing

Well I hope the rest of you are having better weather then Me! I guess it's good for rooting all the stuff I planted in the spring. You know the weather is cool when your T. Fortunei is out growing your bananas. I think mine is a mutant it's grow six leaves since I uncovered it and I just fertilized it 4 days ago. Can't wait to see what it does now.

Post some new pictures everyone!!!
Bill

[DesertZone]

Hello everyone,
I'm at it again! Another trip to Florida, This time to drive my grandmother and car home to save her 900 bucks on transport.

Being that far south it's hard if not imposible not to bring things back. I was sure the haul would be limited when I saw all her things, but that didn't stop me from buying the first 2 bananas in florida. One was a large unmarked 7 gallon plant that is most likely is a ice cream banana 5' total with pot, mature plant. The other a 3 gallon red abyssinian about 4 feet. Total cost 27 bucks for both! how could I not buy them. Here was my problem, I lined up nine 5 gal. basjoos for pick-up near Savannah and barely had any room. By the way my grand mothers car is a grand am, not the best plant hauler. But anyway I managed to fit it all in the car along with my gram's 6 months of stuff I wish I had a picture thats all I have to say.


Bill

Good story, and so very true.
The first time I went to Arizona I packed a bunch of palms in the car. I had no idea what I was going to do with them either (I rented at the time) all I know is that I wanted them. Kind of hard to pass up a 4 ft robusta for only $3 and a CIDP for $7

[lucky1]

nice job of prepping, as always, billma.

Wow those Florida prices are cheap .

An additional heat-boost for less than perfect weather is to place flat rocks on the surface, like shale or slate, that carry the heat into the soil.

Barb

[BILL MA]

Well I sure am glad I put the heat cables in now! The local weather man stated it's the coldest June 1 thru July 15 EVER since records have been kept in Providence (1904). My electric bill is way less than last year since the a/c barely comes on, so I might as well spend it on my bananas Who knows the first frost I might even run the sprinkler over them like a citrus grove to add 2-3 weeks to the season. Anyways here's a few updated pictures from my supercharged banana grove a month and a half later.









The Washingtonia Robustas are 8 feet, the bigger bananas are around the same. Not bad for fitting them in a Grand Am!!!
By the way the unknown 12 dollar banana thought to be a ice cream banana is not. It looks like a orinoco to me but not sure. Still really nice for 12 bucks



Thanks for reading ,
Bill

[DesertZone]

WOW! that sure looks nice

[Rubtherock]

Beautiful. What are your plans for protecting your Washy's this winter? Also noticed you had no transplant shock.

[BILL MA]

Rubtherock,

There was no transplant shock most likely because it was still on the cool side, that's My guess anyways. I plan on building a box over them like arcticpalm. Not sure what kind of heat I'm going to use yet or if I will cut the fronds totally off. The boxes will be to big if the fronds aren't cut off.

Bill

[Okanagan desert-palms]

Looks great there Bill. They should be huge by the end of September. Those Washy fronds could be tied up this winter to save space for a smaller overwintering box.


John

[lucky1]

Storyteller Bill, I love the story! Keep it up.

Great pics of your process, and great looking plants.
Man things are cheap down there.

We Canadians would have to sell our firstborn to afford those plants.

I imagine that heating cord could be added to plants already in the ground, just a little further away?

Well done as always.
Barb

[BILL MA]

Thanks Barb! I'm sure you could add the heat cords after the fact. They have work amazing for me. I still have them pluged in now, they have thermostats to shut off at 72 degree's. What I figure is if it's not 72 under the bananas it should be.

I've always grown some good sized bananas but this year is crazy. My biggest basjoo's have 7 foot trunks! They are so much bigger than the last pictures, I almost can't believe it myself. It's funny that you mentioned the molasses in fertilizer to help bananas, there's a weird smell to the banana fuel, I wonder if it could be that. All I know is it works for sure, since the trunks where as fat as a beer bottle and about two feet high when I planted them this June. And June here SUCKED parden my language, coldest on record.

My goal this winter for this winter is to start off with six foot stems on these bad boys. I'm gonna us all my leaf bags from HD (around 30) around them and use mini lights with a tarp over the top. What do you think can it work? Thats alot of bags what difference does it make if I throw them out in the fall or the spring .

Bill

[lucky1]

Just curious, Bill, so those will simply stay on in the winter and try to keep soil at, say, 45F around the plants?

I'm definitely going to look into those for my 32 year old Trachy, which is spending its first winter (OMG) in the ground.

As to your leaf bags...good idea, as long as you can keep damaging cold from getting between the bags.

One person here had severe damage when a cat (or something) decided to get warm and clawed a hole in plastic cover/tarp.
It wasn't noticed for some time, and the cold got in for several days.

While I've never yet done ANY winter protection, I've seen some "boxes" built with, say, 1x2 lumber.
The inside frame of that then has 1-inch styrofoam sheets caulked and placed to fit very well.
Ends up looking like a phone booth, but from all accounts was very effective.

Hope you'll take lots of pics, Storyman Bill, of your process.

Barb

[BILL MA]

Barb,
Here's the place that I got my heating cables from this was the cheapest I could find after looking for awhile. Your old trachy must be loving all the room it has to grow in it's new home. You already have the wierd warm spot where the snow melts for no reason, why not try some heat cables too can't hurt.

http://www.growerssolution.com/page/GS/ ... econcables

Bill

[lucky1]

Great link, thanks Bill.

Especially their very informative PDF file http://growerssolution.com/pdf/soil_heating_cable.pdf.
At 3 and a half watts per lineal foot of cable, a four footer uses only 14 watts.
Cheap.

As long as it can run 24/7 for 5 months (a real Canadian winter, like our last one!)

Re the warm spot in the ground where the Trachy is planted, I bet it's a leak (concrete form tie, etc.) allowing heat out from the basement woodstove.

Barb

[BILL MA]

Just about three months of growth on the basjoo and there at 14 feet, guess the banana fuel and the heat cables work. The storage unit is 8 feet and I'm 6' 3" they were just about eye level. Here what they looked like when I planted them to now.





Bill

[lucky1]

Proof of all your hard work, great pic of you on the shed roof.
Spectacular growth on those bananas.

With those heat cables, it'll be a race whether bananas will shade your palms, or vice versa.

I bet your neighbors love the tropical look
Barb