Going Bananas
I have mentioned a few times in this blog that I get a botanical “bee up my bonnet’ every year (is that the right expression?) and have a strong urge to explore a certain plant species. It can be an ornamental or a food plant. Last year it was greens- multiple varieties of kale, chard, mustard, spinach, and other greens (my son is culinarily scarred for life). One year it was butterfly daffodils- I planted 400. One year it was passifloras (passion flowers), though this was less than successful, with only two varieties surviving. Then it was Voodoo lilies (I wrote an entry on them awhile ago) - the most inexplicable attraction, as they have weird, fly-pollinated flowers that smell like rotting meat. Enchante´.
This year’s ornamental passion is Musa, less formally know as bananas. No, they do not produce edible fruit, and I doubt that they will ever bloom (if you have seen a banana flower, you know they are amazing and can understand why the American painter Georgia O’Keeffe was so entranced by them) (The US Botanic garden on the Mall in DC often has them in bloom and fruiting and I took the photo of the fruitng plant there). I had purchased a Musa “Basjoo” at, of all places, a local produce stand three years ago (I find that places like this often have one or two unexpected plants mixed in with the geraniums) and it is still growing, about 9 feet tall. This year I bought three from Brent and Becky’s Bulbs: Musa “Siam Ruby,” Musa acuminta “Rojo” and Musa Ensete maurelli. They are pictured above.
Why grow them? They provide lovely, large, lush foliage in bright to dark greens to reds. They give a tropical look to my shade garden, they are fun and I just love them.
How to grow? Things to know:
1. Bananas are heavy feeders. I like to give them a solution of fish emulsion once every two weeks.
2. Bananas like water, don’t let them dry out (I place mine near the hose end and have a saucer under them...hum, that reminds me to put saucers under all of them!).
3. They are supposedly biennials: they grow the first year, then the second, and send up a 'daughter' that year. Cut down the mother and nurture the daughter for next two years and repeat. However, my Basjoo is still growing and has not yet produced a daughter.
4. They can be overwintered indoors or treated as annuals. I put mine in an attic that does not freeze, near the southern-exposure window. I have heard of people wrapping them in burlap and dragging them into an unheated crawlspace for the winter, but have not tried this. I might have to, now that I have 4 of them in large pots.
Happy gardening! Go bananas!
I have mentioned a few times in this blog that I get a botanical “bee up my bonnet’ every year (is that the right expression?) and have a strong urge to explore a certain plant species. It can be an ornamental or a food plant. Last year it was greens- multiple varieties of kale, chard, mustard, spinach, and other greens (my son is culinarily scarred for life). One year it was butterfly daffodils- I planted 400. One year it was passifloras (passion flowers), though this was less than successful, with only two varieties surviving. Then it was Voodoo lilies (I wrote an entry on them awhile ago) - the most inexplicable attraction, as they have weird, fly-pollinated flowers that smell like rotting meat. Enchante´.
This year’s ornamental passion is Musa, less formally know as bananas. No, they do not produce edible fruit, and I doubt that they will ever bloom (if you have seen a banana flower, you know they are amazing and can understand why the American painter Georgia O’Keeffe was so entranced by them) (The US Botanic garden on the Mall in DC often has them in bloom and fruiting and I took the photo of the fruitng plant there). I had purchased a Musa “Basjoo” at, of all places, a local produce stand three years ago (I find that places like this often have one or two unexpected plants mixed in with the geraniums) and it is still growing, about 9 feet tall. This year I bought three from Brent and Becky’s Bulbs: Musa “Siam Ruby,” Musa acuminta “Rojo” and Musa Ensete maurelli. They are pictured above.
Why grow them? They provide lovely, large, lush foliage in bright to dark greens to reds. They give a tropical look to my shade garden, they are fun and I just love them.
How to grow? Things to know:
1. Bananas are heavy feeders. I like to give them a solution of fish emulsion once every two weeks.
2. Bananas like water, don’t let them dry out (I place mine near the hose end and have a saucer under them...hum, that reminds me to put saucers under all of them!).
3. They are supposedly biennials: they grow the first year, then the second, and send up a 'daughter' that year. Cut down the mother and nurture the daughter for next two years and repeat. However, my Basjoo is still growing and has not yet produced a daughter.
4. They can be overwintered indoors or treated as annuals. I put mine in an attic that does not freeze, near the southern-exposure window. I have heard of people wrapping them in burlap and dragging them into an unheated crawlspace for the winter, but have not tried this. I might have to, now that I have 4 of them in large pots.
Happy gardening! Go bananas!
My language consultant wrote the following:
ReplyDeleteI think it is actually a “bee IN my bonnet” rather than ‘Up my bonnet”
Urban Dictionary agrees, and here’s what comes up on Phrase Finder, http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/59775.html :
Meaning
Preoccupied or obsessed with an idea.
Origin
Thought to have come from Robert Herrick's poem Mad Maid's Song, 1648.
Ah! woe is me, woe, woe is me! Alack and well-a-day!
For pity, sir, find out that bee Which bore my love away.
I'll seek him in your bonnet brave,
I'll seek him in your eyes;
Nay, now I think they've made his grave
I' th' bed of strawberries.
The first citation that uses the precise phrase is in Thomas De Quincey's Coleridge & Opium-eating, 1845:
"John Hunter, notwithstanding he had a bee in his bonnet, was really a great man."
De Quincey makes no attempt to explain the line, which would have sounded rather odd if heard for the first time out of any context. We can surmise that he would have expected his readers to be familiar with it, and that this may well not be the first appearance of it in print.
Do you keep a gardening journal or a notebook to keep track of what you've done in years past, and to document your feeding and watering schedule? Or do you have a section of your brain that can store all the info and allows you to recall it all at a moments notice? :-)
ReplyDeleteI have a very weak system of keeping track of things (receipts in pocket folders for the most part) and I seem to remember alot about plants. Do I remember to take the trash out? Take my pills? Whether my son was born in '96 or '97 without counting on my fingers? No. But I can usually whip out the botanical name for a plant I have!
ReplyDelete