Product Review

TROPICA - Snow Banana (Ensete glaucum syn. Ensete wilsonii) - 10 Seeds

Worth knowing: The fast-growing snow banana is not so well known yet like many other species. It grows a strong, waxy and green-blue pseudostem. Its long leaves can grow to as much as 2-2,5 metres in size, with the stem able to attain a height of 3-3,5 metres. The plant is growing so fast, it sometimes reaches a height of one metre already after 4 months.

Origin: The Ensete glaucum is a native of Nepal, China and Indonesia. There, it grows in elevations of 800-2000 metres.

Propagation: The seeds can be started indoors at any time throughout the year. The very hard seeds should be carefully roughen with sandpaper, be left to soak in water at room temperature for 24 hours and then be pressed 1 cm deep into moist cultivation soil. With temperatures at 22°-25°C, germination follows after 3-6 weeks.

Place / Light: Banana plants love bright to sunny and somewhat wind protected areas.

Care: If the snow banana is cultivated in a tub, the tub should be quite large, for 3 year old plants already require a 60-70 litre pot. When grown outside, dig up a large hole and fill it with humus-rich soil before planting the banana. Provide with tub plant fertilizer every 10 days from May until the end of September.

Winter period: The plant will survive the winter in an outdoor position. Therefore, all leaves are cut in late autumn already. The pseudostem is shortened with a straight cut 20 cm above the ground and wrapped up in jute fleece or coconut mattings. Put a plastic pot over the stem and pile up soil around it. The banana can spend the winter in a greenhouse at 10°-12°C. Only the leaves need to be cut. The snow banana will sprout again at the sides of the pseudostem in spring.

Bonsai Suitability: No