ButterflyLady29
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Posts: 1030
Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2015 9:12 pm
Location: central Ohio

Renovations

Now that the weather has finally cooled down it's time to evaluate and remake any flower beds I haven't been happy with. I've got a patch near the top of a kind of steep hill that has daffodils in it and a bunch of weeds on top of that. Since I need to move my peony and this spot is as near full sun my back yard gets it looks like a good spot. I've been digging out the trumpet vine and other weeds and removing rocks and concrete chunks and adding rabbit bedding to the soil. I know there are a couple Magic Lily bulbs in there somewhere and I hope I don't cut them up like I did the ones I dug last year.

After I get done with that I need to cut down the trumpet vine, remove the old broken lattice, rework the supports and put up a new lattice panel. I would like to make a nice archway to put in there but that's not in the budget this year.

In late April I planted a banana plant between the bed I'm reworking and the Trumpet Vine. It's nearly 5 feet tall. It was one of 4 that I planted outside. I have no idea if it's roots will survive the winter or not but I'm going to take a chance. It was a pup from another plant that I've had for a few years but this was the first I planted any outside. I still have several pups in a tub which will be brought indoors but I'm considering covering this one with a lot of mulch to see if it survives. There is one outside that is still small enough to dig and bring inside.

I have to find another way to protect my Chicago fig. It died to the ground last winter, which wasn't all that cold or snowy. This year it has seriously outgrown it's cage. Straw does not insulate above ground plants all that well. Fallen sycamore leaves do a much better job. I will probably have to buy a new roll of fencing and do the banana as well as the fig with it.

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KeyWee
Senior Member
Posts: 231
Joined: Fri Dec 26, 2008 2:50 pm
Location: West Kentucky

Wow ~ what a JOB! I have some renovating to do this fall too, but feel like I still have a couple of months (we can hope) to do it.
I don't think the banana plant will survive the winter (although stranger things have happened, and it's "supposed" to be a mild one haha). We are in 7a and I have to put mine under the house in the crawlspace.
If you really want to insulate well, just buy a couple bags of cheap topsoil. I always have this stuff on hand for lots of purposes. On sale it's only a little over a dollar a bag.

ButterflyLady29
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Posts: 1030
Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2015 9:12 pm
Location: central Ohio

I've seen photos of a house just a bit north of me (less than 20 miles but they get a lot more snow and ice there) that has "hardy" bananas in the ground year round. And I knew a guy in Kansas who built an elaborate wire cage around his tropical bananas and then stuffed the cage with leaves and wrapped it in burlap and left it out all winter. In both cases the plants survived and grew even larger year after year. So it may survive, it may not. At any rate I have more and will dig up the smaller one and bring them inside. Yes, it's a gamble. It may work, it may not. If it does I will be thrilled. If it doesn't I haven't lost anything except some time and effort.

We usually get a hard freeze right around Thanksgiving with snow and ice soon after. That leaves me about a month to do work that I have put off for several years. I don't think I can get the 30 foot x 30 foot black raspberry patch tamed enough to plant my tomatoes in the sun before next spring. I still have blueberries and grapes to get in the ground too. And in the past 2 days we've had more rain than we had all summer.

I don't have to worry about digging and planting my garlic patch. The cloves I didn't get to are already up and growing again.



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