How to Grow a Banana Tree

Monday, 21 May 2012

This is only the second summer that i've had my banana tree after receiving it from Amazon in February of 2011. I've been surprised by how well it survived and grew this past year. Here are some of the previous pictures and posts where i've written about it.

Banana Tree - 2011
Banana Tree Update - 2011
Banana Tree Planted - 2011
Winter Seeds - 2011

Now it was time to move the banana tree from my living room, where it had been sitting all winter, to the backyard. It was a pain to move outside, it weighed about 100 lbs. I'm surprised the bucket didn't break. But the tree was alive, healthy and all the leaves looked green.

but then...

The phrase about March "comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb" didn't really seem to be true this year. The end of March was cold and so was April. The temperatures dropped down to the 30's at night. My banana tree died. I guess that's why there aren't a lot of banana trees in Michigan.

It's not actually dead, the root system will hopefully send up a new tree when it warms up. But just the fact that i moved it indoors all winter just to move it outside too early and let this happen, is a bummer.

So i cut it down to a stump.

As it warmed up during the month of May, two new shoots came up. So i decided to transplant it from the big green bucket to the ground. You can see the new banana tree shoots on either side of the stump.

So hopefully in the next month i will see one or maybe two new banana trees growing in my backyard.

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Bamboo in Heavy Snow

Saturday, 25 February 2012

At least once or twice every winter here in Michigan we get a day of really heavy snow. Even though this has been one of the warmest winters in a long time, i woke up a couple of weeks ago and saw this in the back yard. There was a snow and ice storm and the bamboo was completely bent over and almost broken.
But the bamboo is strong. I went out, shook off the snow and the trees immediately started unbending and straightening up.

Here are links to previous posts about growing bamboo in my backyard in Michigan:

• Bamboo - Transplanting from West Virginia

• Bamboo 2 - First Winter

• Bamboo - 2011 - Winter and New Shoots

Here's what it looked like a few days later, good as new.

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Bamboo - 2011

Tuesday, 24 May 2011

This was a tough winter on the bamboo, lots of leaves turned yellow, overall though they survived.

I'm still not sure exactly what type of bamboo i have. I think the small trees are Canebreak bamboo (the only native bamboo to the US) and the larger ones are Yellow Grove bamboo I'm only guessing from pictures i've seen. The Canebreak bamboo i got in Kentucky and the Yellow Grove i got in West Virginia.

I also have Moso bamboo that i grew from seeds i ordered online. After reading about the different types i've learned that as long as the roots stay above -10 degrees Fahrenheit they should still be alive in the spring.
In the summer i piled lots of grass over the root area and in the winter i made sure to pile lots of snow around the base of the trees to help insulate them.
Here's the shoots this year from the little Moso bamboo. This plant is only 1 year old and probably will never be very big. Down in Florida it could be 40 feet high and 6" in diameter. But here in Michigan it will never grow that size because of the cold winters.

I was happy with how well the Yellow Grove bamboo grew in 2010. I was really excited this year because of all of the roots i saw growing last year. This picture was taken early in the summer 2010.

Around Easter i noticed the new shoots coming up. Over 30 shoots from this one cluster of trees.

This is one of the bigger shoots, maybe 1/2" in diameter.

These pictures were taken over no more than 10 days. You can see the shoots on the left. They will grow sometimes over 8" on really warm days.

One day i was outside and saw ants chewing on the bamboo. I sprayed some insecticide but this is what they looked like the next day.
Because of the heavy rains and ants, not every emerging shoot fully grew to trees but overall this has been the best year for the bamboo.

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Charlie and His Wing

Wednesday, 12 January 2011

The same night that i took those showy pictures i let Charlie outside and he came back with a pigeon wing. I'm not sure if he killed the whole bird or what, but he seemed pretty happy with it.

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Snowy Night

Last week i was reading online about how to take better pictures at night. All the pictures i used to take were real grainy or blurry. So after the big snow storm i shoveled the driveway at 10pm then went in the back yard and started experimenting with my camera.

The first few pictures came out really poorly but slowly got better and better. These were taken with the lens being open for 4 to 8 seconds. The camera had to be set on a tripod to making sure it didn't move at all. I did leave the porch light on for a couple to create some cool shadows.








With the lens open for the maximum that my camera would allow, 8 seconds, i tried writing my name with a flashlight and shining the light on me to make a ghosting effect.

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Out of town again...

Saturday, 6 February 2010

Well i was suppose to be going back out of town for work again. This time i'll be headed to Pennsylvania just south of Pittsburgh for another 2 or 3 weeks. Although it has already been delayed a week because of a snow emergency down there. Apparently no one is allowed to work on the roads.

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3 weeks in West Virginia

Sunday, 17 January 2010

Work called and i left for West Virginia, for a 3 week trip, on December 27th. So for the 2nd year in a row i was working out of town on New Years. Luckily during the time i was down there, West Virginia was having unseasonably cold weather, with lots of snow. And i found out that down there when it snows 3" school is usually canceled. But as always it was lots of walking, around 100 miles, and during that time i saw lots of cool stuff. I really enjoyed the mountain views, they were everywhere and looked great covered in snow.

Here's what i looked like most days, trying to stay warm.
I also learned that there are TONS of deer in that state. In fact West Virginia has led the US in number of car/deer accidents; Michigan is number 2. They were everywhere and unlike Michigan where they could walk around in farm fields, it was either stand in the road or on the side of the mountain.

Not lots of farms or cattle but there was the occasional cow with an itchy nose.

Measuring out the line
After a couple of weeks in the Super 8, my clothes pile did get a bit messy.

A cold early morning

Apparently where people in this town paid for water. No it was not a double wide.

Instead of burying pipes like gas lines they sometimes just laid them on the ground. Here's their hi-tech solution to crossing a river. Screwing a wire to 2 trees.

Scary land owner that definitely had lots of guns. And had no problems telling the DNR how things were gonna work.

The coolest guy in West Virginia.

And of course he lived on...

Incase you can't read it, the hand painted sign says "Neurosurgical Assoc" on "Knawl Creek Rd" I'm not joking this place was out in the middle of nowhere. If you hadn't already guessed, Knawl Creek road isn't a major highway. It isn't even paved, its gravel. I didn't want to even think about what kind of equipment they used to use in their redneck neurosurgery that got performed in that place before it collapsed.

"Honey my central nervous system's still hurtin' me" "Well time to go down to that neuro-something-or-other down on Knawl Creek"

Typical road names were either "lick", "hole" or "hallow" (pronounced "haller") It took me about 4 months to realize what people were talking about when giving directions and said "ya ya'll want to turn left down at the second haller off a Mud Lick road"

This was a burned down house. But after offering a big reward like that i'm thinking any day now they'll have their suspect. You could have bought the house for around $400.

Fresh bear tracks crossing the road we were walking. We guessed they couldn't have been more then 3 or 4 hours old since it just snowed that morning. That's my boot print next to it, just to give a sense of their size.

Straightforward sign

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