I have a Musella lasiocarpa that I bought 2 years ago and I am in love with it ! It has grown into a very nice looking plant that I have potted in a very large ceramic pot. Now, my issue is that it is overcrowding the pot with all of the pups that have sprouted up and I am sure there is a gigantic mass of matted roots in there. If I am even able to get it out of the pot without breaking the pot, how can the plants be broken apart?
Do I just saw through the rootball and separate individual plants? Must they all stay together? How much of the root system does each plantlet need to survive?
Any tips appreciated... I will try to post a picture later
chris
Rootbound Musella lasiocarpa what to do ?
Is this a pot with an opening narrower than the rest of the pot?
In any case, cutting them a part can be done, but depending on how amny plants there are, you may lose 1 or 2 (or more?) due to cutting them at a bad place.
Banana pups grow better attached to the mother corm. But bananas are such quick growers antway, unless you need a bigger plant faster, as long as they have some good roots already, they'll take right off.
I have gotten pups to root that had the corm (or what was formed of it) damaged or missing. Takes a little petting and some time, but in summer, that's not terribly long, to be sure. A friend roots them in water.
When I have had a potbound banana and had to get it out of the pot, I'd let it go very dry so that the rootball would shrink some. It helps, sometimes, but othertimes the root mass is so tight, that it doesn't seem to have an effect.
What really did the trick is jarring the pot against the ground as hard as possible w/o breaking the pot, of course, from different sides. Eventually the root-pot seal will loosen and the rootball can be pulled out. Depeding on how harge the plant and pot is, having someone pull on the pot while you support and pull the plant can be easier than going it alone.
Though I'm not speaking specifically about a banana plant, I have had to sacrifice a nice large standard terra cotta pot when the plant just refused to budge (sometimes had taproot growing through the drainage hole that I didn't want to cut) and I didn't want to get too rough with the plant. I just broke the pot with a hammer. I used the broken pot for crocking large pots.
You might want to wait till late spring to do this so that there's plenty of heat to speed your plants along. Any damage to the roots will quickly heal and new roots will grow quickly. You could also transfer the whole thing to the ground and dig it at the end of the season and divide after storing. They will amze you with their growth in the ground!
M. lasiocarpa is *very* hardy and I have had them return in early spring with no applied protection at all here in 7b. They are rated several zones colder with deep planting and protection.
Robert.