Survived Storm Austen - Musa Basjoo Update - Protection Cornwall

 

                                                      Musa basjoo

We survived ! ⛈️😱🌧️I checked all around the cottage this morning and everything looks a bit battered but o.k as far as I can see .

So my Musa basjoo is about three years old now and this will be it's second winter planted outside . It is the (for Cornwall) left in the ground most hardy one !

It came through the terrible Storm Gorretti earlier this year ,with a simple cloche over it held down by bricks .

This year it is quite a bit taller . I fixed up a double row of pig-wire and plastic trellis fastened down with some metal rods . 

I placed three old compost bags in between them as a windbreak . 

I thought that would do it ...but as the storm winds picked up I decided it needed something more !

                              I pushed Rosie up alongside . 

That is one heavy wheelbarrow . I can hardly manage to push it even when she's empty !

So after one very wild night , I can see that the biggest leaves have shredded in the wind . . . but they are designed to shred in the wind . The two new leaf shoots look fine . 

 I will see if I can make the windbreak a bit taller . As it gets colder and those shredded leaves wither away , I,ll then be able pull a cloche over the top  of it . We have milder winters here ( though you still need to wrap up warm ) and when the winter sun shines it would not be good for it to have the cloche over it all of the time .

Generally the older and bigger the plant is , the more hardy it will be over the winter months .

You might be lucky , leaving these in the ground , but far safer to take them up and get them under shelter .

    Musa ensete "Maurelii" are all potted up in lovely fresh compost and dragged into the woodshed . I did this on the 23rd September so that they have time to adjust and get their roots down before going dormant .

 I will lash on polystyrene all around the tubs as the weather turns colder .

                                        Snug as a bug in a rug !

It is still blustery here and I think Storm Boelo will be causing havoc up north this time .

       I have just hung some washing on the line , double pegged everything !

Take care in these Storms , especially on the roads,  stay home if you can .

                             Love and Peace 🕊️🤍

                                         love Debbie 💐x

Banana Plant Number one - Winter Protection - Cornwall

 

A few more pics of our morning walk after a good breakfast .

            Didn't need a coat . Didn't need a jumper .  It was foggy but warm .

It is forecast to be warm all week  . Starting to get that Autumnal look with blackberries and silvery cobwebs glistening in the hedgerow 

.

    It soon cleared and after playing with other people's dogs ,chatting with friends and visitors along the way , we came home pleasantly tired .

 Soon revived with cups of tea , toast and orange marmalade .

  I decided to make a start bringing some of my more tender plants into their Winter shelter zones .

  Banoonaah number one - Musa ensete maurellii -  🐒🏝️🍌

 The one up on the bank .

                                    Bish ! Bash ! Bosh !

                              ......and into the wheelbarrow !

                       Then away to the woodshed ......

Where I pot it up in it's very large tub with some new compost mixed with perlite .

It is both standing on and surounded with polystyrene packaging and there is light coming in through the clear plastic corrugated roof .

  I just need to water it to settle it in . It now has some time to get it's roots down into the nice new compost before we go into Winter . 

 I don't cut leaves off , nor do I trim the roots . As we go into the colder months I hardly water it at all . I just keep it ticking over in a dormant state until late Spring .

                                    That just leaves these two .

       Musa basjoo - stays outside and I can throw a cloche over it if need be .

        

 ⭐ If you live up country , then you will have to bring this one under cover too .

   Best to see what people are doing where you are , but here in the far south west of Cornwall , Musa basjoo is fairly hardy .  It will get pretty tatty but it should recover .⭐  

This one will be next , but I just need to pace myself really and so I'll wait a few days to get my strength up again  .  Maybe tomorrow ..... see how I feel .

⭐ I forgot to say - useful tip ....after digging up your banana...dig out the hole nicely and put a bucket or large empty pot into the hole to keep it open . So it is an easier job to re-plant next year !   ⭐

             Off now for walk number two and a picnic .

                         " Everyday is a picnic day !"

                          Peace and love 🕊️🤍

                                          love Debbie 💐x

Roses and Potatoes

 

                              Lovely climbing rose back in June .

Early this morning we had a very mean sprinkle of mizzle .  The water barrels are still empty .       Anyway it meant that for the first time this summer , I was able to do a few jobs in the ornamental garden . 

The climbing rose which looked at it's very best last month , now needed some serious attention . 

The petals were dropping into the crown of my Musa basjoo below .

So now the rose has almost finished flowering , I thought I'd give it a good tidy up and tie in some of the remaining branches to encourage it to grow the other way .

I went in quite hard , but there are still some sprays of fresh rose buds to come .

                            Musa basjoo  ( fairly hardly in my location )

It's looking very dry . I'm going to give it a good feed and a drink , put a good mulch around the bottom .  I want it to get nice and strong in order to get through next winter . This banana plant is quite hardy here in my location S.W. Cornwall .

  It has been cooler this morning , but they are saying that we are going to have another period of very hot weather , coming by next Wednesday .

      Musa ensete "maurelii  ( needs to be brought under cover for the Winter )

As for this banana plant , well , Musa ensete "maurelii" looks to be doing really well . . . . but I will give that a feed and a good long drink . . . I'll be digging it up again in a month's time and dragging it under cover for the winter .

Ricardo has been on Spuds in tubs duty and with all the joy of an eight year old proudly presented me with all of these from just one Spud tub !   🤗

                      ....and he scrubbed them all nice and clean too !  

          That's all fer today folks , hope you're having a great weekend .

                                             love Debbie 💐x

                                                   🌿☀️🌿🌦️🌿

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 !                    

                                                     🌿☀️🌿