Musa ensete maurellii no 2 - planting 🌿

                     Musa ensete maurellii no.2  The red leaved one .

  It is too tender to leave out over winter . Now in the ground and looking good .  

Musa basjoo , the green leaved one in the foreground , survived the winter . Only occasionally put a cloche over it . 

Going to throw some chicken pellets down around them both , to give them a bit of a boost !

   The wind has died down now , I got a load of washing dry on the line .

Feeling tired but happier than I was yesterday 😊💐🌿

          🌧️  More rain on the way !  🌧️🌧️🌧️

                   Peace and Love 💐

                          Debbie x

Sunshine ! ☀️

                     What did I tell you  ? !!!  🎶🎵 There'll be Sun !!🎶🎵

I want to have a bonfire but can't because Jessie's incredible Giant Echium is too close !

That monster must be eight feet tall !  It should be flowering soon and then it 'll be twice as tall !

Then off to prune and tidy up my little Pear tree and make a start on the Apple tree .

  It's the Ivy that is the main problem here ....but  I will sort it ! 

There's something very therapeutic about ripping off Ivy...I should do it more often !

The Ivy has made such a mess , but now it can get some air in there and dry out . 

I will go back and pull out any Ivy that is growing around the base tomorrow .

It is a right pain . I need to get the Ivy off my tree fern too . 

           ⛈️🌧️🌧️🌿🐌 2026 Year of Ivy , Slugs and Snails 🐌🌿🌿⛈️🌧️🌧️

I lopped off the water-sprout shoots and a couple of branches that were crossing over one another .

 Branches removed , it looks much better and will grow better .

I like to prune the apple trees myself , I know what I'm doing and we always have beautiful apples . 

I am a little late but it had to be done .

 I made a good start on the apple tree but will do some more work on that tomorrow .  

The Pear and the Apple trees will soon be flowering . 🍏💚🍐

A few pics from around the garden . I am in love with Hellebores at the moment . 🩷

                                Musa basjoo   ( the Banoonaah 🍌🐒🤣)

 So far , it seems to have survived the worst of the wild Cornish winter weather  .

 This was it's first year left in the ground . In the end  I had a cloche over it to protect it while we were having the big storms . It had a vent which I tied open to let the air circulate . The beautiful red bricks are what I use to hold the cloche down with ...in case you were wondering .

 Musa ensete "maurellii " the red  leafed bananas are still under cover , and I have started to give them a little rain water . It's time to start waking up ......but very gradually .

Today I noticed the Arum Lily is starting to flower ...but of course this has really enjoyed all the rain .

 In a really cold winter , this will completely die back . It's been fine this year .

I brought the washing in off the line and did two more loads and got them dry on the line also ! 

I took the remaining tomato , cucumber and sweet pepper plants up to the shed . ..to join all the others .

The plant labels finally arrived from Amazon , so now I can label everything .

And more seeds arrived from Premier Seeds  Direct 🤗💛😃

 

I think we're off for a walk now while the sun is still shining ....sort of.....maybe clouding over a little bit now . ... who cares ...it's been a beautiful morning ! 

                                              ☀️🌤️🌥️

                     p.s. They are saying it's going to turn cold again  ❄️😒

Thinking Days

 

                          The sun has returned . 

         My Achilles ankle is hurting so am not allowed to do much for a couple of days .

Meanwhile on the bedroom windowsill - My Turmeric plant is looking fabulous ! 

My only thought now is  of how big it is going to get and can I get it through the Winter months . Will it be happy on the windowsill or should I take it up to the greenhouse  ?  🤔

                                   The smaller weirdo plant is Ginger ! 

Anyway the lovely leaves of the Turmeric reminded me of the Banana plants outside .

I should be taking out the Musa Ensete maurelii - ( the red one )  sometime soon  and moving it into it's overwintering shelter .

The green one is Musa basjoo - this is the hardy one . I'll talk about that in a bit ....more thinking to be done  🤔

I looked through my records to remind myself of when I usually do this .  🤔

So here I am digging it out ....it seems that I did this around 25th September  .

So I have a couple of weeks still to get organised  .

I need a couple more bags of good compost . I take them up with as much of a good root-ball and earth as I can and put them into their tubs with lovely fresh compost to get their roots down into . I water to settle them in then that's it really . I hardly give any watering over Winter . They ( I actually have two of these ) are then dragged into their shelter zones under cover . They have light from the overhead corrugated plastic roof . 

                                Musa basjoo -  the hardy one .

At least I hope it is ! I kept it under cover last winter , because it was , I felt , too small . 

This year I am going to be very brave and leave it in the ground  and make some kind of a frame to go over it . 🤔

Scary !   

Then I had an idea !  🤔💡 🍇🌿😃

The old grapevine arbor/arch . I had twice tried to put it back up , but it just keeps falling down and is very rickety and broken in several places . We were going to chop it up for fire wood , but now I'm thinking . 🤔

 If we cut it down by a third , it could make an attractive (in a wonky kind of way ) shelter to go over the banana plant !  😃

Might even paint it ! 🤩

Anyway , as you can see , I haven't really done much about this area that I was recently saying needs smartening up .

Well , this is because it's not one of those garden make-over shows and Rome wasn't built in a day !

... and I've been really busy doing this !

Clearing the pathway/route up and around this shrubby slightly sloping bed , so that I can prune the bushes and trees ...I need to check on a newly planted red leafed Acer that is up there in front of the Holly tree .

There are a couple of  trees that have got to go .

🕊️And we have a new dovecot to replace the one that was smashed down in the storms last year . I need to clear out the remaining broken bits of the base of the old one . 

I was heartbroken when that came down in the winter storms . My sweet heart daughter and son in law bought us a lovely new one . 🕊️

There is a lot of thinking to be done here too  🤔

I'm going to clear everything back from the Cornish hedge , take out any Sycamore and Sloe bushes that are germinating  . They are a real pain ! I think I have cleared most of the brambles in this first part of the way . 

Possibly that fir tree is on it's way out .

I will dig a large hole while the earth is soft , wet and easy to dig and next year I think that one of the Red Musa Banoonahs will look quite splendid here . 

Lower down than I usually plant it .🤔 It should look nice with the Cornish hedge behind it .

More thinking !  🤔 At the moment I can easily climb up onto this bed and there is a little step , it would be better if it was wider . 🤔 So , I am going to move some of the rocks around , to widen that step .

You can go now if you're bored ....

So I printed out a picture of this , numbered to rocks and cut them out .....to help my husband visualise what I am planning  .

Then I moved them into their new positions ....

That's just my keyboard underneath the picture ....so I cut out a bit of the undergrowth to fill in the gap .

...and stuck it where the new widened bit of the step will be . 

I would like to take out number one and two , and make it a little bit bigger still but Ricardo is not sure about that . 

                      It's o.k ....everything will be okay.....I know what I'm doing . 

                                 Debbie knows what she is doing ! 

                                                  I is knowing !                    

                                                     🌿☀️🌿    

🌿🍌Banana Plants 🍌🌿

 

                   My new one Musa basjoo .     Musa ensete ventricosum "Maurellii " .

                                             Time to plant out my Bananas !

So Musa ensete ventricosum "Maurellii" with it's lovely red leaves , I've had for years ....maybe ten years or more .

Every year I plant it out and in the Autumn I dig it up and bring it in under cover to protect it through the winter . 

It is one fabulous looking Musa one of the very best in my opinion .

Last year I bought two very small Musa basjoo plants . This variety is more hardy . They were too small to plant out last year , they wouldn't have made it through the winter months , but I think that by the end of the season they should be o.k. to leave out  . 

                      Naturally , this involved  more weeding ! 

           Then deciding which one to go where ? Oh ..and digging out two big holes ! 

🐜🐜I was mercilessly bitten by ants as I tipped out the big Musa ensete from it's pot ; rolled and dropped it into position .🐜 I would have liked it a couple more inches along , but I couldn't bear any more of the ants stings !

It was quite a large nest ! 🐜🐜🐜

    I was so glad to have them planted out , as we have rain coming this evening to water and settle them in .

      They should really get growing fast after this evening and over-night rain . 

 

  I brushed away the compost on the lawn . The robin will enjoy the ants eggs .

So that leaves just one more Musa to plant out and that one will be going up on the bank . ..but not today . Exhausted !

 Earlier I began tidying the herb garden , also taking a couple of leaves off of the Phoenix canariensis up beside the greenhouse .. Another big job . No pics of that as I had just thrown myself into doing it on the spur of the moment . Still a long way to go , maybe pictures tomorrow , but it will mostly be of more weeds !  Maybe another bonfire .

I finally got round to planting out those Liatris spicata bulbs . In this bed are the Giant Dinner-plate Dahlias , Scarlet Hollyhocks , Nicotiana and Sunflowers . I have put chicken-wire around them to keep the bunnykins off .  A snail has already munched one of my Sunflowers ! grrr .. 🐌

                  Monkey Puzzle tree is looking proper handsome now !

That's all fer today folks ! Thundery rain on the way this evening . The wind is already starting to pick up .

                                                              ☀️ 🌥️☁️ ⛈️

 

 

Ensete ventricosum " Maurelii "

 I finally dug up my big Ensete ventricosum "Maurelii "/ the Red Abyssinian Banana .
 It has been very happy on this North facing bank through the summer..but I know that it  just would not survive through the Winter here..I have tried .
 I,ve been going on about digging this up for weeks now and my friend gave me a gentle nudge to get on with it !  ( as you can see it was getting dark too ! ) and it is now up in the woodshed safe from the winter weather .
   I will get a bag of new compost to mulch over it's roots , but probably wont water it at all now, until next spring , unless it is looking particularly sad .
 This was an expensive plant and with a little care it can be planted out again early next Summer . This lovely Banana can get between 8-10ft high and 5-10ft wide ....but at some stage it will be too big for me to keep lifting . I have been taking pups from it and bringing them on , which will eventually replace it .
  Musa Basjoo is the most hardy one ,but mine are still too small to plant out yet .

Banana plants - Spring

We took a ride over to Hayle Plants to collect a couple of baby Banana plug plants that I,d bought online , actually I bought them from Plantaholics but I was to collect them from Hayle Plants next door....anyway very excited .. as it is always been closed whenever we,ve tried  to visit .

  Blue sky..we've had some squalls ,hail and thunder , it is still a little blustery , but brightening up now .

  It was a lovely drive ..all the daffodil fields are looking so beautiful right now .

We found the place , its quite close to the Golf Club,where my husband likes to practice on the driving range . I usually sit doing my embroidery in the car while waiting for him , but now I can come and look at the plants and get ideas for the garden .

They are very busy filling up the main huge greenhouse with lots of beautiful plants .
 I  love the succulents ..unfortunately the one I would have liked was not for sale ..but Bess told me they will be bringing more in and maybe they'll have that one .

A couple more photos of this splendid greenhouse ...just give me a deckchair and I could sit here quite happily all day ..lovely and warm ... aaah  .

My two Musa Basjoo Banana babies ,were actually quite big and very healthy looking specimens .

I grew one from seed about twenty years ago , it grew very big and I eventually planted it outside . After three years though it began to dwindle away and last Autumn I decided to dig it up and give it some more intensive care and pampering .

Here it is , it is putting up a new shoot now . I just cant remember which variety of Banana it was . I really would like to have a clump of Bananas in my garden  and Musa Basjoo is the one that does best here in Cornwall  . It is known to be the hardiest one .

 The rest of the day I spent potting these little ones up and tidying up my big old Musa Ensete  maureii red banana  . This is such a beautiful banana plant, but not very hardy , not even here in Cornwall , this one should always be dragged into a shelter zone for the Winter .     ( By the way , I,m talking Cornwall England here , not Cornwall in Canada ...who are having some really cold and wet weather at the moment !  Hi ! Cornwall in Canada ! )

                   Musa Ensete maurelii red banana - before and after its tidy up .
In the Autumn , when I drag it in ,I dont take any of the compost off, I dont disturb the roots at all . I dont cut any of it's leaves off . Some of the outer leaves go crispy and that is fine . I dont water at all through the winter .
 Today I have taken off a few of the crispy leaves , but not all of them , see my picture above . There is a lovely new leaf coming up and beginning to unfurl .
I scraped off some of the old compost on top and refreshed with some multipurpose compost . I ,m thinking about to planting it outside into the ground , but that wont be  for a few weeks yet .Its either that or it should really go into a bigger pot  .
 Here is a slideshow of how I brought it in for the Winter a couple of years ago .

                    I pulled off a couple of those shoots and potted them up .

I also put fresh compost in that time, as the plastic container was much bigger than the original pot .
  Hope the slide show works or I'll have to come back and re-edit this !