It's been a long time since a banana update!

Wow, it has been a very long time since I updated this blog! So far, my tropicals have not grown as fast as they have in previous years due to the long, cool spring. The tropicals I have discussed in this blog do quite well in a Virginia climate, but as a general rule; the more heat they have, the more they will grow!

Despite the cool start to the year, my hibiscus has done very well and just bloomed for the first time last week (six blooms at once, last year it was one at a time!) and the velvet pink banana has taken off like a rocket!

Unfortunately, Japanese beetles have taken a liking to my banana plants and did quite a bit of leaf damage before I sprayed (I use pesticides if there is a heavy infestation). Bananas are so fast growing the damaged leaf area is quickly replaced by new growth, so the plant will recover quite quickly from a beetle attack. You can trim the damaged leaf area off for aesthetics.


Here's a pic of the banana!

Honeysuckle brings both tropical flowers and tropical birds to a garden

Trumpet Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) makes a great addition to a tropical garden. Not only does it look great, it also attracts those tropics inspiring hummingbirds!

Unlike the invasive Japanese honeysuckle, trumpet honeysuckle (sometimes referred to as coral honeysuckle) is native to the eastern half of the United States. In fact it is listed as endangered in the state of Maine!

Trumpets can be distinguished from other honeysuckles by their flower. While most honeysuckles have flowers that open wide with the long stamens mostly exposed, trumpet flowers are long and tubular with a small opening at the end, perfect for a hummingbird's beak! There are many flower color varieties to choose from (the one I have has a bright red tube with a yellow tip).

Trumpet honeysuckles are easy to care for. When I plant them I mix in compost or potting soil and make sure that the soil has good drainage by adding a little sand if necessary. A couple inches of mulch will help control weeds and help retain moisture. I fertilize using a slow release, low nitrogen fertilizer as trumpets don't need the "high octane" stuff bananas do! Once they have had a year to spread their roots they are drought tolerant, but I water them like my tropicals.

In Virginia trumpets are deciduous. After the leaves drop the bare vines will be covered in bright red berries which song birds relish. New growth will come from both the woody vines and the roots in the spring.

Honeysuckle requires a trellis to grow vertically, and like moonflower it has no suction cups or holdfasts that could cause damage. I want mine to grow up the side of my shed, so I covered one side of the shed with green wire garden fence. As the honeysuckle grows I thread the vines through the fence in different directions so that eventually the entire side of the shed will be filled with flowers!

Honeysuckle is easy to propagate, so if you need to fill in a large area I recommend buying just a few plants, then filling in the area with cuttings. To take a cutting, snip off about a foot of vine and place six inches of it in water. Place it in a sunny location and in a few weeks when there are sufficient roots plant it a couple feet from the parent. Make sure you take the cutting from new growth (old growth looks woody) or it will not root!

Unfortunately, trumpet honeysuckle is susceptible to tomato horn worms, so be vigilant! Two years ago my honeysuckle was attacked by horn worms and was almost completely defoliated in less than a week! (they have since recovered)

If you're looking for a great cold hardy tropical looking plant to fill in that fence line, get some trumpet honeysuckle. The hummingbirds will thank you!

Hardiness Zone Map is being updated!

If you've been looking at plants wishing you were just one zone warmer, guess what! The hardiness maps are changing! Later this year, the USDA will release a new hardiness map. The new map is rumored to include 15 zones instead of the current 11, and the a and b sub zones may be eliminated.

The current USDA map, produced in 1990, is based on average temperatures from 1974 -1986. The new map will take advantage of the increased weather data and computer modeling that has become available during the last 20 years.

I don't know what the new USDA map will look like, but the Arbor Day Foundation has produced their own updated map (shown below). You can see that the update has put many areas of the country into a warmer zone.

Personally, I view the zones as guidelines and generally have no issues with planting tropicals that are listed as requiring one zone warmer than my (currently!) USDA Zone 7 garden. I just put them where they get the most sun and mulch them well. Zone maps are based off just a snippet of time in the history our constantly changing planet, and while it looks like Earth is heating up now, it wasn't too long ago (climatologically) there was the "Little Ice Age"!

Let the growing begin!

I returned from a business trip to find that it has finally warmed up, spring is here! Tonight I fully uncovered my pink velvet banana, and as you can see it had already began greening up. I plan to take photos over the coming months to make a time lapse movie showing how fast these things can grow!

When uncovering fast growing tropicals, I like to throw a handful of high nitrogen fertilizer around the plant. As soon as the sun hits the green stalks rapid growth begins, and to reach peak size you need to give musas and cannas (which have been slower to emerge than musas in my experience) plenty of food and water.

Preparing your cannas and bananas for early spring

It's finally starting to warm up in Virginia, and while we are not in the clear to completely uncover our cannas and bananas, we can start to work on them now! Over the winter, the mulch placed over the plants to protect the roots from freezing has been packed down from snow and rain. It's very important to allow air to circulate through the mulch to prevent it from staying waterlogged and creating an environment for rot.


I use my hand to fluff the mulch and check for new growth and, if present, remove any slimy parts of stalks. As there is not likely to be a deep freeze for the remainder of the spring, I cover the plants with a little less mulch to maximize air circulation.

Here's a pic of the banana plant I winterized last year before I covered it back up. You can see the new growth already starting, and there are two additional stalks!

Moonflower Seeds

It's still the dead of winter, but it's not to early to think about flowers and tropical plants! Tonight I opened some of the seed pods I collected from my moonflower vine once the first few frosts killed and dried the plant. As you can see, you get a lot of seeds from just one moonflower plant (and this is just a third of the pods)!

In late spring I will plant these along the front of the house as moonflowers look wonderful growing on a porch rail! It is recommended to soak the seeds overnight and to put a small nick in them, but even without this treatment I will have enough sprout to more than cover the railing.

If you want to get your own moonflowers, you can order seed packs from Amazon.com One pack of seeds will cover a lot of area! If you have a grow rack, I would start the seeds in a couple weeks for planting outside in late April.