Got me a NOID Banana and a White Bird of Paradise! And how cool is it that there is a thread telling me how to take care of the BOP right below my thread! Also brought home bunches of large pots I needed for my plants that need to overwinter in the greenhouse like the tropical hibiscus. What I'll do is sink the larger pots in the ground and just put the non hardy's, pot in all in the larger pots .. come fall I'll just lift them out and stick in the greenhouse.

BOP to the Left and Banana to the right.

Very nice, Anne! Great looking plants

Thanks! Was really wanting a banana for the front bed .. the Bird of Paradise was a very, VERY nice surprise. It had lots of dead leaves on it and the one green leaf .. I think that's why everyone over looked it and I was thrilled to get it.

How ingenious. The smaller pot inside the larger, just pick it up and take it inside!

Thanks .. I started doing that many years ago with Morning Glory Vines ... I call it Pots in Pots. It works so well that I do it pretty much with all my plants that have to be over wintered in the greenhouse.

http://garden.org/ideas/view/X...

Anne

Good luck with the plants. I have a Musa basjoo that I bought Aug. 14 and overwintered indoors that year. Put in the ground May 15 and overwintered with 3 feet of straw and leaves.

Got a White BOP Aug 15 on sale and over-wintered in my living room. I sank the pot last summer in my tropical area where I have the banana, cannas, hardy Kiwi, elephant ears. This year I will plant a hardy Windmill palm that I over wintered indoors. Am also gonna add a Cardoon and an Artichoke to my tropical area. Also will have 2 or 3 Plumeria there.

Thanks David!

Anne, the white BOP's get to be really enormous - are you ready to add a second story onto your greenhouse in a couple of years?

I have 3 or 4 big clumps of them in the garden here. This year we cut out trunks 8in. thick that were well over 15ft. tall just to keep them in bounds. My garden is not small but these plants are really much too big for where they're at.

I'm sort of saying "don't encourage it too much" because if you do, it will get too big for you too quickly. They really aren't good pot plants.

Ack! Thanks for the head up Elaine .. had no idea .. I'll stick it in the ground, mulch it real good in the Fall and hope for the best. I wonder if you can dig it up and dry store it like @Swayback does with his bananas.

I'm almost sure you can do that. I have overwinter my (regular orange) BOP in my unheated garage for a couple of years, and you don't get as cold as we do here.

Deebie said:I'm almost sure you can do that. I have overwinter my (regular orange) BOP in my unheated garage for a couple of years, and you don't get as cold as we do here.

Do Tell. Me thinks my White BOP will be pushing my DW's limits come October this year. It was ~ 3 feet when I bought it late summer '15. It is now same as me 5' 9 "

C'mon guys .. you're scaring me to death - making my white BOP sound like a monster!

Well, as long as it doesn't knock on the door asking for food like the birds and squirrels do - I suppose I can live with it.

No, mine get up there and mess with the power lines when they want my attention, Anne. Hmm, let's see if I have any "monster" pictures for you.

Just for reference, the top of the fence is over 6ft. Some of those leaves are nearly 8ft long not counting stem.

Oh, and here's the big one at the Marie Selby Botanical Garden - see the big fan of leaves at the top of the picture? Well over 30ft. tall, with probably a dozen more stems coming up around it.

Holey guacamole! I had no idea .. Always wanted a BOP - are there any other whites a bit more manageable?

The smaller orange/blue ones stay more like 4ft. tall at most, and there is a variety of those with yellow/blue flowers but I'm not sure about white.

Hopefully this one is the S. alba and NOT the S. nicolai. I'm thinking that since it will get cut back every fall that it won't have a chance to get too absurdly tall. I hope.

Just remember to not be too kind to it during the growing season. IF you get a lot of rain again this year, it will slurp it up and grow to monster proportions even if you don't fertilize.

I don't fertilize mine at all, and they're growing amongst the root system of huge live oaks as well. Still they jump up every summer and need tremendous cutting of trunks every winter.