Covering Musa Basjoo Banana For Winter and What It Looks Like in Spring
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- Опубліковано 26 лис 2024
- Even though I had read of how cold hardy Musa basjoo Banana Trees were, I still had my doubts, since I know how cold it can get in our zone 6b location. We even had a fairly cold winter this year for our area, so it got a good test. In November, after a couple of freezes, the banana tree was looking pretty rough. When the weather forecast called for some nighttime temperatures in the 20s F., I decided it was time to cover the banana tree for the winter. In this video, I show exactly how I covered our banana tree, then I show exactly what it looked like when I uncovered it in April. I also show how it was greening up and growing on May 6th.
The first year of growth for our Musa basjoo banana tree: • Musa Basjoo Hardy Bana...
Musa basjoo and Musa velutina update - June of year 2: • Musa Basjoo and Musa V...
Musa Velutina From Seed to Bananas in Zone 6b: • Musa Velutina Banana -...
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I garden in zone 6b, in the state Kansas. I would love to hear from you, so feel free to comment, make suggestions, ask a question, give tips, tell about your garden, or even offer constructive criticism.
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I went to a Cornell small farmers course around 2017 and there was a man saying they grew multiple bananas each year in zone 5 which were edible and I think he must have meant these. After 20 years of having them dug up or chewed down I successfully got Michigan Banana/pawpaw to make it through a winter (caged it within a cage) and had thought that was the closest to a banana we could ever get. Thank you for inspiring me to try these!
Yes, these are worth a try, but they are not edible. Ours has been going for 5 or 6 years or so, and has never produced bananas. I have had Musa velutina produce bananas though.
I love my musa basjoo's! I'm in Virginia mountain area and we have warm and very humid summers with plenty of rain. Regardless of how bad they look after
winter they quickly break dormancy and shoot up at a rapid pace and become enormous! They give off pups freely so I have more to plant around the place. I
find there aren't too many things that bother them, the bugs don't seem to munch on them nor do the deer.... a win-win plant!
I'm glad that you are enjoying yours too, David. It sure doesn't take them long to get going. The fact that nothing seems to bother them is another pretty neat thing about them. I bet yours really do well if you get plenty of rain.
Good morning. When you showed the mush I was saying that's a done deal. Then when you showed the growth I was so excited. I felt like that's my baby and it made it. Great video from beginning to end. Have an awesome day
Thanks Cheryl! It was very interesting to experience the entire first year of a banana tree in our zone. I really didn't know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised 😀
@@MidwestGardener you are the best at trying things out. Your mind takes us to another level. I always told my children to broaden their horizons. I'm glad mine's too. Keep up the great work.
Thank you for those very kind words :) Very much appreciated!
Very good narration on your banana trees and how you tackled them through the seasons, Jim. 👍👏 That sure was a lot of hard work. 👍👍 Even though banana trees are a common sight here in Malaysia it was very interesting to see how you cared for yours. It opened up my eyes to how lucky we are to be living in the tropics where we just stick them in the ground and forget all about them untill it's harvest time. Good work, Jim!! 👏👏
Thanks Molly! I've always thought it would be very interesting to live where bananas grow all year long. There are so many things we can't grow here, or only for a few months. But I guess there are advantages and disadvantages to every location. I'm glad that you appreciate your special climate :)
Seeing that come back in a mid to low zone is really cool. After another grow season it may even get stronger and evolve to better at surviving than it was before. An evolving 6B banana tree is bonkers. Sort of like a Petunia growing out of a tomato plant. LOL Thanks for the share!
Now I need to work on getting a petunia growing out of a banana tree, lol 😀
I'm zone 6/7 in the UK. I don't cut my bajoos back at all. I cut off the leaves and wrap the stems in fleece because I want them to get higher each year. If I didn't wrap the frost would knock them down to ground and they would sprout from the base in spring. I don't mulch but there is sufficient ground cover around the base to protect the roots.
Thanks for sharing how you do things there. I tried wrapping them one year, but decided it wasn't worth the effort for me.
Those are some thought plants! They came back and look amazing 😉
I have terrible zone envy watching this video! I garden in zone 4b & need to lift my bananas every year to overwinter them in a basement grow space. It's a lot of work, but SO worth it!
I completely understand, Jennifer. I feel the same way about zones 8 and 9 sometimes. Your zone would definitely be challenging for a lot of things.
This gives me hope. I have mine in pots. I bought them in last winter and probably this winter because i didn’t know what to do. But next spring im planting them in the ground.
Good luck! I hope they do great for you!
Love the start to finish type vids, so nice to see the different stages all at once!! Hope it does well for you again buddy:))
Ps- FIRST:))))
Thanks Ryan! It's off to a great start. Now if I can get the Musa velutina going.
😀😀😀
Jim's Midwest Banana Plantation 🍌🍌 is looking great. Well done my friend. Best wishes Bob.
Thanks Bob! It was fascinating for me to see it come back to life after such a cold winter here.
you composted the plant above ground and kept it warm. Very interesting! ty for sharing.
Whatever it was, it seemed to work. I'm just thankful that it was alive this spring. It's 2 feet tall now.
Great vid. I dig mine up and bring them in for the winter
Thanks! I guess that would be safer.
Good job done Sir. Have a great weekend!
Thanks CB! You have a great weekend too!
Such a pleasant surprise to see them alive 👍😃. Halelooya
Yes it is :)
Thanks, Great work.
You're welcome! Thanks for watching!
Camera bump at 1:21 LOL I did that during my first harvest video and decided not to edit that out. Cool bananas!
Yep, it was a hard bump too :) Yes, the bananas amazed me with their cold hardiness.
I was waiting for this video.. had I subscribed and turn my post notifications on I would have got it 3 days ago lol.. Done 👍
I love your videos I just pick up 15 of them.. I live in Zone 7
Hey, thanks! We aren't too far off on our weather if you're in zone 7. The Musa basjoo should be a piece of cake for you to grow. I'm also growing Musa velutina this year. It's not as hardy as the Musa basjoo, but I'm going to try to overwinter too.
@@MidwestGardener that sounds great good luck on that
NICE!
Thanks!
Thank you!
You're very welcome!
Looks very good thank you
Thanks. They are just starting to grow a little bit this year.
Great video!
Thanks Catalin!
Hi Jim. Thank you so much for this video! I’m planning on incorporating a Musa Basjoo in my yard this year. I wanted to possibly put it near my patio. Would you recommend that? I want to add a tropical feel to our sitting area. How close would you say is too close?
I live in zone 6. I was wondering how it would fair over the winter months. Is it fairly simple/easy to remove the pups if you want to keep the plant more contained?
Hi Christina. I've had mine for several years now. One thing that I've found out is that each year, the group of banana plants gets larger around the edges. Last year, one plant sprung up about 4 to 5 feet from the rest of them. This year, I plan to dig more up to keep them in check. So, with all of that in mind, I'm not sure I would put it very close to a patio unless you keep a close eye on it and don't mind doing some digging if it goes in the wrong direction in a year or two. Good luck!
@@MidwestGardener thank you so much for the tips! I really wanted to experiment with one this season. I’ve heard that one should avoid planting too close to a property line as well. I also heard that the root system is not one to be too concerned over because it’s not woody so no worries about it interfering with foundations and pools nearby. Does that sound right? I’m wondering if I should plant it a safe distance from the patio and property lines by at least a 10’ radius all the way around. Thoughts?
@@christinabeiler9374 That 10' radius sounds like a safe distance. You should be able to catch it in time to dig it up if it starts to stray very far. I haven't really researched whether it could do damage to concrete.
great video! do you get bananas from these or do they not have enough time to finish? they are very heavy feeders that speed up there growth.
Thanks a bunch. I've never had our Musa basjoo bloom.....yet. I have had our Musa velutina bloom and have bananas the last two years. Last year I was able to save seeds from the bananas, but I don't really consider the bananas from the Musa velutina to be edible because of how many seeds there are. This year, we got down to 17 below zero F. and both the Musa basjoo and the Musa velutina survived.
That’s so cool Jim! I can’t wait to see it grow this season! How are those floods going? I hope your home wasn’t affected.
Thanks Sasha! It's off to a great start. It's over two feet tall already. Our home is high and dry. We have gotten water in our crawl space before.....a few years back, but nothing in the house. Just across the road though, a few houses had their basements flooded. I just feel so bad for some folks who don't have much, but they lose what little they do have. And the floods caused some people in some towns to have raw sewage back up into their houses because the drainage was overwhelmed.
My big banana plant came from a mother banana plant that grew shoots at the side it and mine was one of them
I’ve had it for 13 months!
Nicely done!
@@MidwestGardener so it was a sucker that came from another banana plant
Any luck with getting fruit so far?
I haven't gotten the Musa basjoo to fruit, but I have gotten our Musa velutina to fruit two years in a row.
Hooray! It made it🌿. Neat to see the cross section of a banana tree stem with rings but pith instead of wood. Are bananas and cannas related? They look so similar.
Speaking of tropical plants, if you like orchids check out my newest videos. Have a great weekend!
Thanks! I was pretty pleased that it lived. That is a good question about the bananas and cannas being related. I'm really not sure about that, but they are very similar in appearance and growth habits.
Perhaps cannas are related to bananas or perhaps they just have a similar form. Plants are so rewarding. They surprise us with their resilience and delight us with their beauty.
I totally agree 😀
@fp Neat! I didn’t know that.
Do we need to cut it down for winter have u tried not doing it to see what hPpenz
I always cut ours down. My sister-in-law didn't cut hers down and it came back fine. She lives only a couple of blocks from us.
When the old mother plant Grows after uncovering does it ever grow fruit or does it start from scratch as if it were a new plant?
I don't think we have a long enough growing season for it to bear fruit. I'm in zone 6b. And even if it did bear fruit, I don't think that the fruit from Musa bajoo banan trees is edible. I did produce bananas this year with our Musa velutina banana tree.
Why do you cut them down? I don't bother chopping mine, I just wrap them lightly in frost fleece
Thanks for the tip. I've thought about leaving them taller, but just haven't done it. I might give it a try later this year.
@@MidwestGardener I live in the UK. It gets to about - 8 where I live in Yorkshire. Not sure what that is in Fahrenheit. This year has been a mild winter so my bananas are about 4ft high already.
Wow, that would be a nice start! Sounds like your climate is a little milder than ours in the winter. Our winter was a mild one here too, but we got down to 8 degrees F, which would be about -13 C. We sometimes get down past -10 F, which would be about -23 C. So it can potentially get that cold any winter here. I could probably build a cage around some of the stems, and they might be ok in a winter like we had this year. The type of weather that does the most damage to plants here is when the high temperature doesn't get above freezing for 4 or 5 days in a row. But I think the bananas do enjoy our hot summers here. It's fairly common for us to get above 37.7 C some years. Every place has it's advantages and disadvantages. Stay safe!
@@MidwestGardener wow minus 13! I can see why you insulate them so much now. I take it back. You do what you have to do.
Thanks! I hope you have a great year with yours!
Just picked up a Zabrina 😀
Nice! I'm not real familiar with that one. Is that the one that is hardy for zone 6, or the one for zone 9 or 10?
How long does it take them to get back to 8' tall again
I'm not sure how long it takes for them to get 8 feet tall again, because I didn't keep track of that. But right not it is over 10 feet tall.
Can I keep them outside covered up in zone7? In US.
I'm in zone 6b, so I would say yes. I mulch with a couple feet of leaves or straw.
Where did you buy them?
I got them online, Raymond. There is a link to my amazon influencer store in the description. It should have a link to the seller of the bananas in there. Good luck if you decide to get one.