Musa: Preparing for Winter

With the weather forecast to be getting colder, there were still a lot of jobs to be done on the Musa Ranch before the onset of winter. Luckily the weather stayed dry this weekend and, I’m pleased to announce, most of the tasks have been completed.

The compost heap was dug out and that yielded lots of black, crumbly rotted compost that was spread as a thick mulch around the garden particularly on the areas of poor soil and around more tender plants. The wooden sides of the heap had themselves rotted and so had to be rebuilt using anything to hand including an old door. With the structure complete, the top layer of the old heap was put back in and it soon filled as leaves and remains of plants were added. I always feel relieved when the dreaded task of digging-out the heap has been achieved as it is hard work but most of all because it gives space for the loads of other material that will come from the garden over the next few weeks.

Another task achieved was the wrapping of the banana stems with fleece. I wrapped both the Musa sikkimensis and Musa sikkimensis ‘Red Tiger’ in several layers of fleece and I hope that this year it does the trick. Fleece was also stuffed into the crowns of the Tree Ferns, this form of frost protection has worked well over the past 2 cold winters.

Above: One of the Musa (banana) plants just before being wrapped in fleece. The dead leaves were removed and added to the compost heap.

I also dug-up and potted some of my more treasured Colocasias and put these into the small, temporary, plastic greenhouse which is now completely full. I no longer worry about the basic Colocasia esculenta as they seem to survive quite well in the open, indeed, they are even mildly invasive.

Other tasks included raking the leaves from the lawn and clearing the pond of fallen leaves.

As I said, the small, temporary plastic greenhouse is now full. I have had to leave some of the Ensetes in the ground as there is no room for them.

Above: The dying leaves of an Ensete ventricosum ‘Maurelii’ which will have to take its chances outside as there is no room in the inn or the small, temporary plastic greenhouse. (The leaves of the Hosta look good)

The garden looks better for a good clear up and we are nearly ready for winter.