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Don't know whether to laugh or cry!
Having such a small garden and being an incorrigably impractical
collector, I need as much space for plants as I can find and therefore don't have room for artificial structural focus. Over the past 7 or 8 years, I've relied upon the hardier bananas to provide this and with their 3-4m high false stems and even longer leaves, they've done a splendid job. Two species I use are the common Musa basjoo and the increasingly popular Musa sikkimensis. Both are good, solidly reliable and hardy species here that retain their 'trunks' without any protection at all. So far, so good. The other day I noticed that a 'trunk' in the basjoo clump was in flower and by the looks of it, it had been out for a good few weeks. I'm a bit embarrassed that I failed to notice what was going on, but excuse myself by saying that the sikkimensis clump is growing at such a rate and with greater vigour than basjoo - several leaves had masked the emerging flower spike. The spike BTW emerges almost horizontally and is somewhat thicker than a broom-handle. The clusters of flowers are white-ish, borne in rows at the base of very large, somewhat inflated and leathery bracts that are dull brownish on the outside and faded ochre within. The bracts form a large bud at the tip of the flower spike and protect the developing flowers. Now some folks might be pleased to get even a common species such as basjoo into flower, but it has happened here before and is a relative non-event since basjoo cannot produce mature fruits unless the flowers are pollinated. Bananas have separate male and female flowers on the same spike, but not at the same time. The female flowers always open first, followed by the males, which continue over many weeks and sometimes into autumn. Culinary bananas are sterile and fruit without being pollinated, but many species need a suitable pollinator. Without a this, the embryonic basjoo fruits cannot develop and they remain finger-sized, green, fibrous and totally inedible. Since it is exceptionally rare for a clump to produce two or more flower spikes at slightly different stages, basjoo never fruits in the UK. So for me this flowering is more of a pain, because it means that over the coming months, an important 'trunk' will die away, leaving me with the headache of disposing of it. This morning, I was looking at the sikkimensis clump quite closely and it dawned on me that the reason for a particularly ragged and undersized set of leaves emerging from the top of the most important 'nana trunk' in the garden was that it too is about to flower. Whoo-hoo! Crack open the Banrock's Sparkling Shiraz and let's celebrate. Well, erm not really. This trunk is at the centre of the clump and its eventual demise will throw the focus of the garden out of kilter. Of course I was aware that this would happen eventually and surprised it didn't do so last year. However, to lose two important trunks in the same year is going to cause me a bit of head-scratching to say the least. A small ray of sunshine is that basjoo is likely to pollinate sikkimensis and since the bees obviously love the flowers, I can let them do the business for me. If the coming autumn is long and mild allowing the fruits to ripen, the seeds will yeild hybrids between basjoo and sikkimensis and the fruits should taste half decent too. Then I'll celebrate, but in the meantime I have to work out how to dispose of two massive banana 'trunks', both of which are around 40cms. in diameter at the base, weigh a ton and will not rot down in a compost heap for a very, very long time even if shredded. |
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