There's a moral ( Moral no.1. ) in this blog, which goes something like this.
Don't dig up any plant and discard it until you're absolutely, 100%, sure it's dead!
In my blog "2005 Winter Summary" I noted that M.Sikkimensis looked as though it had passed on to greener pastures.
In fact, I was so convinced of it's demise, that I'd decided to dig it up and dump it.
Fate, in the shape of other jobs taking priority took a hand and the seemingly soggy mess was still in the ground in mid Spring.
I should say here, that I mulch the roots heavily to provide Winter protection but I leave the stems unprotected. The soggy mess was all that was left of the stems.
One evening in late May, while taking a stroll round my acres, I noticed a shoot poking it's head through the mulch.
Lo and behold, it was M.Sikkimensis back from the dead!
As the day's past, another couple of shoot's appeared. Oh joy and all that stuff, a miracle no less.
As can be seen from the pic, M.Sikkimensis is now growing away strongly and hopefully will continue to do so for years to come.
There's another moral in this story, ( Moral No.2. ) which I'll now tell you.
Originaly, I bought two M.Sikkimensis in the Spring sale from an exotic plant nursery.
I planted one out in the garden and grew the other one on in a pot.
As the Winter drew ever closer, I wondered what to do with regards to giving the Musa I'd planted out some Winter protection.
As it happened, I came across the website of someone who's an expert in these things.
He recommended putting wire mesh around the stems, filling it with straw and putting a cap on top to keep out excess rain.
So, that's what I did.
Come the following Spring, I removed the straw and mesh expecting to find my Musa in fine fettle and raring to grow.
No such luck!
All that was left was a smelly mess of soggy brown gunge and this included the root system.
An e.mail to the expert, asking him where he thought I might have gone wrong, bought the reply and I quote "Sorry I don't know, I've lost one of my plants that way as well".
The moral is, "Beware of Experts" keep an open mind, use your own judgment, try to experiment and remember, what works in someone elses garden might not work in yours.
Seriously though, M.Sikkimensis is an excellent plant needing only sun, a rich soil, lots of water and fertilizer to keep it happy.
Wind can be a problem, causing the the leaves to split but I've never had any problems with pests on it.
A very nice plant and root hardy down to minus 10c. Posted by: Mike