Overwintering Tropical Plants

You can overwinter many tropical plants by just bringing them inside for the winter.  I have a six-year old hibiscus that resides, and blooms, in my living room until later April.  The only problems I have had is that the plants, unless given supplemental light, may look ragged and tired by the end of winter and we get fungus gnats, tiny and annoying, but not harmful, bugs.  I recently began using a BT (Bacillus thuringiensis,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacillus_thuringiensis) product from Gardens Alive  (KnockOut granules
http://www.gardensalive.com/product.asp?pn=3440  ) that is organic and harmless to all but the gnats and it seems to be effective.
Overwintering an aquatic (pond) tropical plant is a different matter. I have been overwintering an umbrella palm (photo above) for several years.  Umbrella palms are easy to root, just cut off the long stem and place the "umbrella" in water, but these take a few years to get to a decent size, hence I bring it in from the pond. I have also overwintered floating water hyacinth with success.  These plants are overwintered in an out-of-the- way place, my attic, as they are not very attractive and can get a little smelly (change the water if this happens).  They need supplemental light, under hanging florescent tube lights.They need a sturdy container that does not leak and holds a sufficient amount of water to keep the plant alive.  Here I am using a crisper drawer from a long-defunct fridge (Reuse, Reduce, Recycle!).  It is sturdy and clear and I can check the water easily for bugs.  I do not bring in pond water- this guarantees bugs, and perhaps hatching mosquitoes, in your house! I use tap water, with the proper amount of a de-chlorinator sold for ponds, or cholrine-filtered water.
So, plan to bring those tropical plants inside in the future (BTW, I brought this umbrella palm indoors on 11/26- the pond retains heat and it was still unfazed by the cold!)
Happy gardening!

Going Bananas!

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!