Musa mekong giant running banana plant

Other plants we have or landscape elements like ponds.

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JWH
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Re: Musa mekong giant running banana plant

Post by JWH »

Mekong giant has been growing again with 85-100f daytime temps in the greenhouse since may 1st. Looks like our warm weather ends next sunday :cry:
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Re: Musa mekong giant running banana plant

Post by JWH »

Starting to grow quickly.

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Re: Musa mekong giant running banana plant

Post by JWH »

One week later.

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Re: Musa mekong giant running banana plant

Post by stevelau1911 »

That must be pretty cool. My mekong giant is definitely dead as its rhizomes have completely shriveled up, while the musa basjoos have woken up over a month ago, but I'm not too concerned as it doesn't look different enough from basjoo to be worth growing, especially if it's not nearly as hardy as it is advertised to be. I don't recommend mekong giant for zone 6.

The 2 ensete maurelii bananas look like they are each finally starting to push a leaf after nearly 3 weeks of struggling, but I also added in heating cables to regulate their temperature. I'm just glad they both made the transition to outdoors successfully.
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Re: Musa mekong giant running banana plant

Post by JWH »

Ten days later.

Not a whole lot of new growth. It's been in the low 60's most days in the greenhouse cause of all the clouds and rain.

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Re: Musa mekong giant running banana plant

Post by stevelau1911 »

It looks like you may need to stick it onto a heating mat to get some real progress. Heating mats/ heating cables do seem to work well on making bananas grow faster so I have them on my 5 gallon ensete bananas which are just starting to get going.

To update the basjoo that flowered, there wasn't a plant to support it so the main stem collapsed leaving the pups to start sucking up all the starch. I ended up replanting them entire thing somewhere else. The main corm weighed around 100 lbs, exceeding 1ft in depth so I bent and nearly broke my shovel getting it out. I left a tiny pup attached to that main corm which was planted at the same depth as before in a different location. I expect this 1 little pup to surpass the 4 larger ones that I broke off as it has 100lbs of energy to feed it.

The 4 pups which appeared to be absorbing all the energy from the mother plant were broken off and planted somewhere else too. I'm planting these basically as a screen to keep the weeds from coming in through the fence, and once I get enough pups, I should have a decent screen.

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Re: Musa mekong giant running banana plant

Post by JWH »

At one point I thought about bringing it inside for extra heat....but I'm growing more heartless to underperforming plants as I get more gardening experience. If it can't grow here without alot of pampering it's not worth my trouble or a spot in my garden. Plus It's strangely fun watching it struggle to grow when it's cool, then grow fast when it warms up. :P

I'm still hoping it'll be hardy here, as it was handling winter as well as Basjoo & Lasiocarpa until several greenhouse roof panels popped out right above it, covering it in ice and snow. Then it got blasted with below freezing air, more snow, then cold rain for 3 weeks before I felt strong enough to pop the panels back in. (spine surgery is no fun!) So I'd like to think its really really tough to survive 3 weeks in a big pot, practically outdoors, in a the middle of our winter :)

Hopefully it has enough corm, rhizome, roots...et cetera, to grow larger than it did last year.
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Re: Musa mekong giant running banana plant

Post by canadianplant »

In my experience, the mekong giant (itinerians) just cant take the cool temps like basjoo. My basjoo grows from 6C at night and when the day temps are hovering around 15C even. The itinerians didnt move until temps were reliably above 20C during the day (both are in pots, not in the ground).

Thats pretty good it made it when the glass fell. Its frustrating not being able to do things in the yard, and watch when that happens. I threw out myback 2 summers ago, and was unable to do any fall cleanup, planting or anything...... Hope you recover fast!
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Re: Musa mekong giant running banana plant

Post by needmore »

To the right is a mekong that overwintered indoors, it had been put straight out into full 80F sun a few weeks ahead of this so I pruned it back, now has a full new leaf and is perking up
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These basjoo I forgot about last fall so they were unprotected all winter but have come up this much on their own so far
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Steve how tall do you think the ensete will get this year?
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Re: Musa mekong giant running banana plant

Post by canadianplant »

Was that the really big one in your sun/living room brad?
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Re: Musa mekong giant running banana plant

Post by stevelau1911 »

Steve how tall do you think the ensete will get this year?
I think in a season from this point, ensete can get up to around 4ft for the first season given that they go in the ground which I intend to do once the soil temperature warms up enough. I think the weight is more important, and they can probably get up to 25lbs in the 1st season.
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Re: Musa mekong giant running banana plant

Post by needmore »

Yes, the tall one in the photo lived indoors all winter.
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Re: Musa mekong giant running banana plant

Post by stevelau1911 »

The ensete bananas have really perked back up with the recent warmup. Both of them have 2-3 leaves already that are adapted to full sun outdoors so I think they have definitely made the transition outside seamlessly.

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Re: Musa mekong giant running banana plant

Post by JWH »

Another week later...sunny & warm weather is back for awhile. I think it's time for it to go outdoors into a sunnier spot to soak up our soon to be 18 hour days.

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Re: Musa mekong giant running banana plant

Post by JWH »

I moved the mekong giant out of the greenhouse and onto my deck almost 2 weeks ago. It's getting alot more sun and seems to be growing faster, it's even putting up another pup. Gave it a good watering with miracle grow today.

Mekong giant (Musella lasiocarpa behind.)
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New pup
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