well - i've already dug it up........
can this be over wintered as a dormant "corm" or something????
maybe i should have left it in the ground and mulched -- i lost one that way the first time i tried.
thought i might do that this year with more mulch and protection from excess moisture ---- but now it's been dug out for 3 weeks and it's snowing today.
it's alot of house plant for my house....
does anyone have any options for me?????
musa basjoo: z6 -ovr wintering???
Just put the plant/rootball in a regular lawn and leaf bag, put it in a room that stays above freezing, and occasionally dump a small bit of water on it - replant it when the temperature is above freezing.
I have had bajoo outside now for 13 years in zone 6. I find that if the plant grew well for the summer and reached over 4 feet tall it has a very good chance of surviving given a bit of added mulching. The biggest problem I find is people mulch with the wrong stuff. Any covering type material can help but some do much more than others. The best mulch is the cheep hard wood mulch it breaks down fast and rots. This rotting effect produces heat and in the dead of winter 3 inches into the mulch you will see steam pour out. The center of a pile can get up to 90F+ degrees. Another great thing to mulch up plants with is a mixture of fall leaves and grass clippings. The green and brown mixture is much like used in a compost pile, this will also produce this heated rotting effect and the end results in both cases is better richer soil and a over wintering tropical plant.
Here is a list of the materials I don't recommend for winter protection
Hay
Cyperus mulch
wood chips
thick wood chip mulch
pine needles
pine bark.
Hi Bryan!!! Do you develop a weed problem from using the fresh clippings?
I have musa basjoo outdoors down in Bucyrus. It's planted in a sheltered window well along a heated foundation. I mulch it every year with a few feet of raked leaves. It does fine for me -- it hit ten feet this year before the freeze.
Last year in the spring after the last hard freeze I removed the leaves, poured on a slurry of water and dissolved hard wood fire ashes, and it rocketed upwards at about two feet a month. :)
-Joe
I have not had much of a weed problem from using the fresh clippings. I do try to keep out any weeds from the mix. Expecially bermuda grass in most cases the leaves will help prevent leaves much like in a forest you will not see many of the smaller weeds do to the mulching of leaves under the trees. In the compost pile the heat from the decaying matter kills many of the weeds and the flipping of the pile. I did find that the weeds do love this rich soil but the dirt is so lose you can easily pull them.
Here is a picture of my uncles basjoos. He is in a valley with no wind and got his to over 25 feet tall. These photos were taken at the end of July.
Wow :)))
Do the bigger box stores sell the hard wood mulch? How it is different than the wood chips? I guess I never paid much attention. Would certainly like to try this method along with the leaves/grass, I could use the soil nutrients.
I started again with hay cages this year (it worked marginally well in my zone last year), but I'm going to replace the hay with leaves next weekend. At the time we had our first early freeze a few weeks ago there were no leaves just yet. Though the bananas withstood the freeze pretty well. Basjoo continue to impress me with their resistance to cold weather. Frost seems to be the real enemy leaf wise.
Hi!!! should I wrap mines?? It is about 9ft tall..