Maurelli overwintering

[The Codfather]

Yeh, I would say its about 15c ish and occasionally a bit higher.

[Dave Brown]

I'm no gardening expert but there does seem to be a lot of un necessary fiddling about with a lot of ensetes on this thread , .............................. From start to finish I can have them dug up and into place for winter in about 45 minutes , and then thats it till spring....

Nick...

Nick - I agree wholeheartedly and have said so before. This is not THE way to overwinter Ensete. It is ONE way of overcoming hostile conditions and Ensete being tough often tolerates it.

But they have this hostile environment over the entire range they are grown in Ethiopia. They actually grow far quicker here than in the bred environment up in the mountains, where they have a dry season of between 2 and 8 months depending on location. Also the farmers transplant up to 4 times in the life of the crop. The whole point of growing this crop is it survives a complete failure of the rains.

I'd say that storing dry is similar to what they have where bred. They can be kept other ways, but can only be watered over winter if actively growing. Any attempt to water a non growing plant will greatly increase risk of rot as the water will just sit in the compost.

[Sat]

I got these ensete and some musa in the bathroom on the window sill. The central heating is now on most days, so its a warm bathroom. Previoulsy I was spraying the plant every 10 days. But now that it warm in there should I spray the plants daily or every 2 days?

What are you spraying with? If its pesticide for red spider mite every 10 days should be fine. If you are spraying water for humidity it should be daily but there is the risk of damp foliage rotting. Even better stand pots on trays of pebbles that you keep moist so there is constant humidity around the plants. But don't stand the plants in water.

thanks colin, I have started to spray daily, its with water. Is daily spraying dangerous?

I do have some stood in trys of pebbles and top that with water when running low.

[Panama Pete]

just been looking at this from last year, some really good comments

[Ste]

I overwintered 3 maurelii's last year in the loft (dry stored them) and everything was fine. Grew back again this summer no problem. I dug out all my maurelii's last month and have dry stored another 4 in the loft but I have sat another in a pot of dry compost in my room where it's much warmer than the loft. It's still growing at a good speed even though I'm not adding any water at all. One thing that's concerning me is I've noticed over the last few days, where I removed the old leaves, they have started turning a bright red. I hope it's not sick and dying as I would love to keep the height for next year. Has anyone experienced this before and know what is causing this? Thanks.

[Yorkshire Kris]

Looks fine to me.

[Ste]

Looks fine to me.

but them 2 red bits wern't there the other week. It was all a sort of burgundy colour but some areas have started turning bright red

[The Codfather]

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