digging banana pups

Other plants we have or landscape elements like ponds.

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pokenei
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Re: digging banana pups

Post by pokenei »

Now, this has been brought up before, regarding how to determine the height of a banana plant. The leaves may point straight up or they may flop over. When comparing one banana plant to the other, we have to compare banana with banana.

i.e. We should either compare the length of the newest leaf, or the length of the pseudo trunk, which coincidentally are the same length, and it's obvious to me why they are.
Alan_L
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Re: digging banana pups

Post by Alan_L »

I don't see any surrounding plants in that photo. Why not let them all stay, and see how you feel about it next year? You can always remove them at that time.
pokenei
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Re: digging banana pups

Post by pokenei »

Just heard some munching noises outside. Sure enough, those raccoon gangsters are back and munching my musa basjoo! Once they've discover the taste for banana leaves, they will keep coming back for more. They have recently raided my grape vines, again, which I didn't care much but now...it looks like my musa basjoo is doomed. :(

I'll check out some store tomorrow to see what kind of poisons there are. It'll probably not be strong enough to kill raccoons, but at least it won't make them feel good.

ps. Has any of you had raccoon problems?
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Re: digging banana pups

Post by pokenei »

I hope they don't eat my giant elephant ear plant also. I think my Thai Giant plant is non-poisonous as opposed to most elephant ear plants. Grrr...
Alan_L
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Re: digging banana pups

Post by Alan_L »

Raccoons eating basjoo leaves? I've never seen a raccoon eat a leaf of anything. Fruits, yes. Leaves? I'm glad they don't do that here.

You may need to set up a little electric fence around the basjoo.
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Re: digging banana pups

Post by johnw »

We cannot keep water hyacinths in ponds in my neighborhood as the raccoons will eat every last one of them.

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Re: digging banana pups

Post by foxd »

I will have to keep an eye out for raccoon damage on my Musa basjoo. So far my main problem has been deer stripping all the leaves off of one fig tree they can still get to.

I'm still amazed that my Musa basjoo not only survived the Winter unprotected, but sized up and produced about a half dozen pups.

I guess Zone 8 Winters will do that. :?
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pokenei
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Re: digging banana pups

Post by pokenei »

Alan_L wrote:Raccoons eating basjoo leaves? I've never seen a raccoon eat a leaf of anything. Fruits, yes. Leaves? I'm glad they don't do that here.

You may need to set up a little electric fence around the basjoo.
Those raccoons roam about our neighborhood on top of the fences. I guess they're curious animals and my banana plant just happened to be within reach (see photo I posted earlier). "Hey this looks strange... let me taste it...um...good! munch munch munch"

I think electric fence is a little over the top. The fence is shared with my neighbors. I'll be liable if something happens.
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Re: digging banana pups

Post by marcat »

Pokenei try spraying the leaves with Hot sauce, Habenaro type should work. It keeps stray dogs out of garbage bags it might work on rat-coons too. Then again I use a wrist rocket sling shot with dried clay ammo. Hurts like hell but usuall no permenant injury and Coons are smart enough to know where they got hurt and tend to avoid they area.
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Re: digging banana pups

Post by pokenei »

marcat wrote:Pokenei try spraying the leaves with Hot sauce, Habenaro type should work. It keeps stray dogs out of garbage bags it might work on rat-coons too. Then again I use a wrist rocket sling shot with dried clay ammo. Hurts like hell but usuall no permenant injury and Coons are smart enough to know where they got hurt and tend to avoid they area.
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Haha... You and I think alike! The sling shot idea did come to mind, but I don't have one right now. And even if I do have one, I'll need to be really careful using it because it could break my neighbors' windows or something.

And yes, I did spray my banana plant with spicy water. My hands are now feeling the burning sensation with from squeezing the spicy chili water earlier.

If my homemade spicy repellent fails, then I'll have to spend $90 to buy a raccoon cage trap.
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Re: digging banana pups

Post by stevelau1911 »

Couldn't you just get some cheap 3ft high fencing to put around the bananas?

As far as traps go, you don't have to spend that much money for a nice trap. Here's a decent one on eBay. There is however no guarantee that you can lure one into one of these raccoon traps. http://www.ebay.com/itm/PETE-RICKARD-NE ... 2ec1287824

I currently have nearly a dozen pups on each of my basjoos, some getting up near 8ft while some are just emerging. They are really starting to catch up to the main plants, and my taller one is still only about 13ft tall with the leaf lifted up. It is more like 6 1/2 ft if you only count the psuedo-stem as the height. I'm glad that nothing has bothered my banana plants so far.


I think it is possible to grow a banana plant over 20ft in height for my climate given that the corm has established itself in the ground for a few years, and a lot of the psuedo-stem is protected, which is pretty easy once you get the hang of it. The musa mekong giant is getting up over 5ft now which is pretty fast growth for its 1st year so it might have even greater potential than the basjoo, as long as it can over-winter.
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Re: digging banana pups

Post by pokenei »

fencing? See my banana photo posted earlier. Those raccoons attack from the top down.

Anyway, they didn't return last night. No way to verify if my spicy repellent works or not.

For some reason, my banana pups never seem to grow more than 6 inches. I am not sure what the issue is. They still have not developed a true leaf and just sits there, not dying or growing.

I have seen fully grown banana plants around here in zone 5/6. It looks really cool towering over the single storey house.
stevelau1911
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Re: digging banana pups

Post by stevelau1911 »

A small banana plant tends to stall their pups on their first year, maybe due to a lack of energy in the corm or root mass to support more than 1 stem. These pups should overwinter easier than the main stem and take off at full speed next year.
pokenei
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Re: digging banana pups

Post by pokenei »

As you can see, the top two leaves have been chewed on before I shooed them away. So far though, they have not returned...or they might have tasted my spicy repellent and wanted no more.
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Chewed_Musa.jpg
stevelau1911
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Re: digging banana pups

Post by stevelau1911 »

I ended up digging out and giving away all of the pups that were over 3ft high as they would have been very hard to over-winter with the 4ft tall 55 gallon barrels as some of them are 1ft away from the main stems. The barrels themselves won't be enough to protect all the pseudo-stem so I'll have to use leaf bags above that point. The leaves hardly ever stand straight up so it's very hard to get a good measurement on bananas, but I can tell that the pseudo-stem on the taller one is a bit over 7ft while its leaf tips are between 13 & 14ft.

Image

Here's the entire progress for this year with links of it that have pictures all the way back from when they were purchased on 19 April 2010.
http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/2 ... -2012.html
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