Ensete Maurelii propagation experiment - Update.

It's been a fair few months now, since I hacked down my Ensete Maurelii in the interests of science. Months past without anything happening, but in the last few days, I have 20 - 30 sprouts coming from what I thought was the stem going mouldy.

 

I'm hoping that everything keeps growing, and that I'm soon able to split some of the plants. 

Ensete Maurelii propagation experiment.

I've seen a few videos on maurelii propagation, so I thought I would give it a go on a rather rough looking little plant. Not the end of the world if it doesn't work, but I could end up with a few more nice plants if all goes to plan.

The specimen before I take a knife to it.

It's amazing how much water these plants hold in the stem.

I've seen good results with cutting a deep V down into the corm, others have cut the corm into quarters. I'm going with the V cut.

Hopefully I have cut deep enough into the corm, time will tell. This picture shows the fresh cut. Three days later it's still looking fresh, no sign of going brown.

Now it's a waiting game.......

Great British Garden Revival

I highly recommend watching episode 8 of the BBC's Great British Garden Revival. James Wong visits a number of exotic gardens in the UK, including the Exotic Garden in Norwich, owned by Will Giles ( http://www.exoticgarden.com/ )

It's on the BBC iPlayer for a few more days... http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b03pr191/

Plant wish list for 2014

This is my current wish list for plants to be grown in my garden this coming summer.

• Enste Ventricosum
• Ensete Ventricosum maurelii
• Musa Basjoo
• Echium pininana
• Tetrapanax papyrifer 'Rex'
• Colocasia
• Canna
• Gingers - Hedychium Assam Orange 

 The list goes.....