Here are a couple of tropicals that I repotted

I have a couple of tropicals that I repotted yesterday. I know that it was not the right time of year to repot them but they were busting out of their pots and really need more growing room. So I repotted both of them and I think they look much better. The first one is a Musa Zabrina banana tree. I bought a pot that would match the maroon color in the leaves and trunk. I think it looks rather neat. Home Depot has started selling some really nice but inexpensive pots in colors that you can't usually find and I really like them.

Jesse

The next one is an EE I think and it really needed to be repotted in a larger pot since it was busting out of the little pot that it was in. Here is a photo of it.

Jesse

cool banana and EE

Here is one other plant that I repotted yesterday. I just love this plant. It is called Graptophyllum Pictum Waimea, more commonly known as a Caricature Plant. It was in pretty bad shape when I got it but it is coming along pretty well now. It roots easily in water and I've taken some cuttings to see if I can make some baby trees from the mother plant. I'm not sure what it is about this plant but I fell in love with it the first time I saw it. Here is the photo.

Jesse,

Wow those look great. Especially that last one.

Looks like we have the same taste in plants and pots. Nice job on potting. I also discovered these pots at HD, although i had to remove the trays during our wet season because they were never draining fully but they'll work great for conserving water during the dry season which seems to already have begun.

Plantcrazii,
Sorry to put my two cents in, but your MUSA ZABRINA is:
MUSA ACUMINATA SUMATRANA also known as ZABRINA.
There is a posting of it in the Dave's database
Hope you dont feel offended for my intrusion.
I have one, given to me as a present., they are very ornamental, yours looks pretty.
Armando.

Wow..Jesse...is that my baby?! LOL!

Armando,

I'm not offended at all. I put it online to find out what it was. Thanks for the correction. So is MUSA ACUMINATA SUMATRANA and MUSA ZABRINA the same thing? Which is the correct name to call it by?

Nan, this is one that DH bought for me at Home Depot. I still have yours growing in another pot, which brings up a question for me. Should I repot the smaller one into a larger pot? Or just leave it alone until next spring?

Jesse

Jesse,

Do you have problems with it blowing over? I have a big Abyssinian banana in an 18 inch pot that gets blown over. I have two 4 foot rebars hammered into the ground bracing one side to stop the major wind gusts from blowing it over but when the wind blows in the opposite direction, there it goes. I guess I need to buy some more rebar. My zebrina banana is in a much larger pot and I haven't had any problem of it blowing over (yet).

Here are my other two banana trees. One is a bloodleaf (I think it is) like the first one I posted and the other is a Dwarf Cavendish. Should I pot them into the new pots that I have or keep them the way they are. I would really love to repot them so that all of the pots matched. If the pots that I bought for them are two big, I can go to HD and buy smaller ones if you all think they don't need larger pots.

Jesse

Nan, this is the tree that you sent me, on the left. It is growing pretty well but I just realized that where I have it sitting it does not get as much sun as the other one so I just moved it to the greenhouse. Hopefully it will start growing a lot more now.

Jesse

Pot them up if you feel like it and have the space. It should fill the pot in no time (well maybe next year).

hcmcdole,
is that the snow bush in the pic on the right side?

hcmcdole,

In the photo at 1:38 that you posted, what are those beautiful purple spiky things that you have there? Those are really cool looking.

Janet

Moretz, You are right - that is Hawaiian snow bush (breynia). It was over 7 foot tall this year until I went to Thailand this July for two weeks and had the valve turned off to my micro irrigation system (how stupid). Luckily it has re-leafed at the bottom but I think the top 5 foot or so is toast.

Janet, I think you are talking about the plants growing next to the banana plant (our time zones must give different timestamps because I see it as 3:38). That is celosa spicata (commonly called flamingo feather - they also have pink and I think white as well). It will reseed readily to almost being weedy but I just pull up the ones I don't want. Once you have it, you won't have to worry about buying anymore seed (unless you don't let it flower and set seed).

Jesse,
Both names are correct, thou the species is Acuminata and the Sumatrana or Zabrina
is the hybrid name. Sumatrana comes from being native of the island of Sumatra.
Armando.

hcmcdole,
i have been searching for that plant,if you ever root any cuttings please oh please keep me in mind ok? i love that plant and dont know where i can get it
thxs
moretz

hcmcdole,

Thanks for the info on the plant. It's really pretty there with your bananas. I'll have to look for that in my travels around my baliwick.

Janet

Plantcrazii.
I have a banana tree that I just repotted (it wat pot bound and had 2 pups) last year I kept it in my sunroom (unheated) and it died down but came back. Do you tret yours like this or does it stay going all year round? If I kept mine in the house wouldi t stya going? Not sure of the name but it looks like similar to the one in the first pic and the one from the 28th.
Thanks,
Dawn

This is the first year that I have had my greenhouse. So I'm not sure what will happen. I am going to keep the greenhouse at 65 this winter and hopefully most everything will go through the winter just fine and maybe keep growing too. I know that my African Violets will be fine at 65 so I'm guessing my other plants will too. If I'm incorrect hopefully someone will come along and help us all out. But like I said, this is my first year and I do not plan on cutting anything back. Hopefully they will keep growing through the winter. Anyone else have any ideas?

I finally got my greenhouse heater installed yesterday. It is a blue flame natural gas heater. We used natural gas because that is what runs the rest of the house except for the air conditioner. So if we have any power outages, the greenhouse will continue to stay warm. And so will we. Back a few years ago when there was a major ice storm here, our friend, who lives next door, went without power for two weeks. We cannot afford to do that so the gas heater will be a blessing. Usually when the power is out the natural gas still runs and keeps us warm. My DH has looked into buying a generator just in case that happens since his work is all done by computer. But we have not made a decision on that yet.

Jesse

Jesse,

We had an outage for several hours years ago and I'm thinking to myself "Boy, am I glad we don't have all electric". The bad thing was without power the controls for the furnace were lost plus the blower, so no power meant no heat. The house got colder and colder. At that time my plants went into the garage and a lot of them turned black and dropped all the leaves (especially the philodendrons but they did come back later that year). If your GH heater doesn't involve any kind of power, you will be okay. If it does, you may want to think of some kind of back up, either a generator or another temporary heating system.

I got a GH at our old house and thoroughly enjoyed it. The problem with it was it was too small after the first year. Most advice I've heard and read about a GH is get the biggest one you can afford because you will quickly run out of room. In my case that was true. The 3rd winter and last (we moved), I had some plants back in the garage and some in my shed (bromeliads mainly where half perished due to a faulty kerosene heater). Now I want a GH that is at least twice as big as my last one, but 3 to 4 times bigger would be even sweeter.

Plantcraz.... in the first post you metioned that that banana was a Zebrina, I bought one that looks like that but said Musa Rojoo ( i think i spelled that right) are they the same?


Hcmcdol....... does the Abyssinian Banana a fast grower? I'd love to get one of those.

guardangirl,

The Abyssinian banana is a fast grower. Not sure if it would be hardy here so I put it in an 18 inch pot. It is over 8 foot tall now. It was 2 to 3 foot tall when I bought it. Here it is mid April shortly after I planted it up.

hcmcdole,
Hi. I haveo ne that looks a lot like yours. When you store yours, does it die back some? Do you cut it back? Or do you keep it in the house as a house plant?
Dawn

Dawn,

I just moved mine into the garage for winter. I cut off the ragged bottom leaves. This is my first year with this one. My other banana (zebrina) is moved into the basement for winter and gets a little ratty looking by the time I move it out in spring but it leafs out nicely. I've also seen in magazines where people will dig up their bananas, wrap them in burlap, and store them in their crawl spaces horizontally, then plant them in the ground the next year.

Some bananas are hardy in my area but I'm not ready to try it yet. When I get a bunch of pups then I will try it.

Check out bwilliams post on tropical gardening 101. He shows what he does with his bananas in N. KY.

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/560038/

Thanks,
Dawn

Wow hcn, what a pretty plant. I want one. I love the color.

Im going to look to see if i can get one. should be hardy in my zone.

Okay, now i'm confused about the name too. Is Musa Rojo, Musa Zabrina, and Musa Acuminata the same thing or are they all different?

Jesse

I think they are all the same except the spelling of "zabrina" should be "zebrina" (compared to the number of hits when searching for both).

From what I can find, it appears that it is musa acuminata 'Rojo' or 'Zebrina' or 'Sumatrana' or even 'Rubra'

Check this site:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~drc/mrojo.htm

Ok. Thanks. I thought they looked a lot alike. How tall do they grow?

here's one I planted a few days ago