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shelby68gt500 has contributed to 1 posts out of 2610 total posts
(0.04%) in 51 days (0.02 posts per day).
20 Most recent posts:
General Discussions. »
Replanting a banana tree! What's the best soil? Oct 13, 2008 01:46 PM
(Total replies: 1)
NY49th, I've been enjoying banana trees for about the past 15 years in VA. I'm far from an expert on these trees, but have learned alot about dealing with them hands-on. I've found that the "looser" the soil the trees are in seems to make rooting much easier, especially if you are planting a larger tree that has wintered out of soil in the garage (Like mine do). On the flip-side of that, the looser the soil, the easier it is for the tree to get blown over in a storm (especially after just planting). I've had mine in both condition soils and now prefer to have a bit of both mixed together. Avoid alot of clay, it makes digging/cleaning them up in fall much more of an ordeal than if you used a mixture of topsoil, sand, little bit of clay and some mulch. Keeping a banana tree in a pot is fine for the short-term, but once it is root-bound, it will grow slowly and stay thin. A root-bound tree about 3ft tall with a trunk diameter of ~3 inches at the base can turn into an 8ft tall tree with a 9 inch diameter base by the end of the season if planted outside with lots of sun and rain. Larger trees (ones over 4ft tall) I have kept in my attached (but unheated) garage over the winter. Most of the leaves are cut off and the root ball is washed of all its dirt and kept dry. As long as it doesn't freeze in your garage, you should be ok as they will go dormant. After the last freeze/frost of the spring (normally mid-April around here), I'll put them back in the ground around my pool. They will look like 4-8ft cigars sticking out of the ground, but once the warmth, humidity and rains come, they will take off. I've had smaller trees (~3ft) grow to over 10ft in just one season (April-October). I've found that as the trees approach about 10ft or so, you can expect them to push out a banana bunch before long. It resembles an ear of corn when it first emerges, but then lops over and starts peeling back layer after layer of petals revealing the immature bananas/flowers. One thing to keep in mind about these plants... they reproduce prolifically... Each tree, after a season outside in the ground will generally have 3-5 "pups" growing from around its base. I've always removed these with a spade, being careful to get part of the original root ball if the base of the "pup" doesn't have roots of its own. I just dug up 3 of the 4 trees I had around my pool this past weekend. In addition to the 3 trees over 10ft in height, I also removed 3 that were about 6ft, 4 that were about 3ft and another 5 that were about 1ft, all pups from the original 3. My last tree (~12ft) sprouted bananas about 2 months after putting it into the ground. It has 6 2ft pups around the base. Once the large tree puts out bananas, it will no longer put out any additional leaves and will put all its resources into the bananas, eventually dying. The root ball lives on though (as is my experience). Hope this information helps! Regards, Bob |
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