Protecting the bananas and some of the other plants for winter

I made a blog about my last year's winter protection of the musa basjoo, but they have grown larger this year so this year I am trying to protect up to 3 feet of the psuedo-stem so that they have a head start onto next year.

First I have the corm itself wrapped up in bubble wrap with wall o water plastic at the bottom for extra protection and that is topped with a couple of trash bags to ensure that the psuedo-stem stays as dry as possible over winter.

Fall planting of garlic for better results in the spring

From late September until the middle of November is pretty much the window of time I use to plant my garlic which are planted at all different times, each batch a couple weeks apart, and altogether, there are nearly 1000 cloves planted. The spacing is also variable. I have some of the only 3-4 inches apart, some around 6 inches apart while today, I just created a huge garden bed not in any of these pictures with garlic spaced around 1foot apart to see how much bigger they get with the extra space. It is necessary to plant them in the fall as opposed to the spring for maximum sized bulbs because it gives them an extra half a year to produce roots, growth hormones over their dormancy period, and come out strong once the snow melts.

These in the closest bed are spaced close to 6 inches apart which is a pretty good benchmark for decent sized bulbs. Closer planting generally results in higher overall production as long as there is very rich soil while wide spacing will usually result in larger bulbs so I mix it up.

Maximizing the growth rate of bamboo by adding a temporary greenhouse

If you've seen my previous blog, before I used grass clippings and roofing tiles to heat up the soil temperature in order to hold in moisture as well as increase the soil temperature by 5-10F which worked well however it only works with fresh grass since it create heat through decomposition.

Now that it has cooled down and I no longer have fresh grass, I have decided to build a temporary greenhouse around the phyllostachys edulis moso bicolor in order to increase the humidity as well as air temperature around the plant especially on sunny days. With this setup, temperatures can climb up to 20F more than the outdoor temperature with the greenhouse effect so I leave the door slightly open and have waterbuckets in there to prevent overheating. I have also added more roofing tiles and loaded up the plant with dried leaves in order to help retain heat for the plant.

Here's a peak inside the setup.

Adding a layer of leaf mulch to all the bamboos to overwinter

In zone 6 and cooler, a good way to help protect plants over winter is to add leaves so I ended up collecting over 100 bags to get the job done. This helps protect shoot buds and rhizomes that are close to the surface since it provides extra insulation, and also allows snow to cling to it. I believe this helps to reduce the chance that the plant dessicates over winter when it gets extremely cold and the moisture is sucked out of the plant. Tarping is the next step, but that can happen in late December when the temperatures can drop below 0F, and I will likely do it to the marginally hardy species.


Phyllostachys atrovaginata

Fall update on the banana plants #2

It's almost time to cover up all these bananas once the frost hits, and there's not much chance of a late warmup. To start out, with the musa mekong giant seedlings that I got about 4 weeks ago, each of them have put out a new leaf and seem to be thriving after having been planted in the ground for over a week. I always try to plant them at least a foot in the ground so that they automatically have winter protection, and I usually add more protection to ensure they come back strong the next year.

Here's how they looked when they were first potted up.

Update on the tree peonies seedlings and grafted plants

If you've seen some of my earlier blogs, you know that I really like tree peonies, perhaps second to bamboos just because of their cold hardiness and relative ease of growth once they get established. They also look very pretty once they turn into a 3-4ft tall shrub after 5 years or so.

I have been growing them from seed in many batches. I only started out with a few the first time around back in summer of last year where I got a few to germinate, and then I planted more this spring as well as this fall in random locations around my flower beds.

Here's how they look when they germinate. It usually takes a warm period to swell up the seeds followed with a cooler period to germinate them, and then another dormancy cycle over winter to cause them to sprout their initial leaf in the spring.

New banana plants Musa Mekong Giant( Musa itinerans) arrives and gets potted up

Since Musa Mekong Giant is considered to be as hardy as Musa Basjoo, and it also looks different with the potential to reach 40 feet in a warmer climate, and still grow at a faster rate then basjoo, I decided to try it out. This banana is characterized by very tall purple stems and more spaced out as opposed to basjoo's clumped together appearance.

As I got them, as expected, they were already perhaps 18 inch tall plants and looking pretty good. I got these off of eBay.