Uncovering the Musa basjoo

I have 3 musa bajoo, all planted at least 1ft deeper than soil level so that the corms are protected from the winters, and additional covers were added to keep them alive since they are the most vulnerable for their first winter. To start out, here's a couple pictures of them last fall before I over-wintered them.

Here are some much earlier pictures of these guys back from spring of 2010.

Here are a few pups just getting started in the fall of 2010.

Now when I over-wintered them, I first cut them down to about 20 inches, and then wrapped them up in an over-wintering blanket several times, then put a plastic bag over that. I then put leaves all around the base, added 3 leaf bags to surround each banana plant, and one partially filled bag on top. I shoved leaves in the cracks to add more insulation. I could have added another tarp over the whole thing, but that didn't seem necessary. Here's how it looked.

Now when I uncovered them, one of them was melted completely down to the ground while the other one looked like it was untouched by the winter. The only reason the other one died back was likely because it started to grow late in November with a late warmup which caused it to puncture the plastic bag however that one is still coming back. All the pups on both plants look pretty much un-flawed as they had much less mass above ground.

Here's the results from the top-killed one. The corm obviously survived since it has started to rise since I cut it off.

Here's the results from the one that lived and these pictures are taken each 2 days apart to show how quickly they rebound once warmer temperatures set in. By July, I expect both musa basjoo plants to surpass their largest size last year which was 4-5ft.