Tropicals & Tender Perennials: Over-winter brugs outside, 0 by bettydee

bettydee wrote:
This phrase was part of the first sentence:

Quoting:Protecting cold hardy bananas ...

Cold hardy bananas can stand temperatures in the low 30s and high 20s if mulched, such as in the method in your link.

As a group, Brugs are not that cold hardy. Heavily mulched, a few are root hardy beyond zone 8 and even here some don't return in the spring, but the tops will die. I'm on the border between zone 8b and 9a. Until this past winter, the temperatures of the previous 8 winters were well within zone 9a. I went through extraordinary lengths to retain the "Y"s on my Audrey Hepburn. I strung 2 strings of C9 Christmas lights, wrapped trunks and first 2 sets of "Y"s with pipe insulation, surrounded the plant with 4 - 45 gallon trash cans filled with water, wrapped it in a double layer of frost cloth rated down to 24ºF and covered the entire arrangement with a layer of plastic to prevent rain water from transmitting the cold through the frost cloth. She still died down to about 18" from the ground. I think of her as being hardy given that the other 2 I had in the ground died completely and never returned.

My advice would be to take large cuttings which include the "Y" and overwinter them in a bucket indoors. They will root slowly and be ready to be potted next spring. Prune what is left in the ground down to between 6" - 12" and cover them with a thick layer of mulch. If you get lots of windy storm during winter, you want to put a wire cage down first and fill that with the mulch. to keep it in place.

This is how my set up ended. I started winter with a mini-greenhouse frame made with pvc pipes and covered with thick plastic. Inside the Brug was covered with frost cloth and surrounded by the trash cans. The greenhouse was held down with a large tiedown. However, the first hard wind shredded and blew off the plastic. I improvised and ended up with this. Way too much trouble for the results I got.