Survival?

Yesterday I talked about a plant (Tecoma capensis) that clearly survived a much colder winter than it should have. Today, I take a brief look at a plant that should have survived -- but I'm not sure to what extent yet.

It's my Musa basjoo, my cold-hardy banana. I've had this in the ground for three years now and have protected it the same way each winter, but this is the first spring that I'm concerned about it.

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Here's a reminder of what it looked like at the end of last summer:

And this is how I protected it before winter set in:

Unlike the previous two mild winters where at least a couple of feet of the pseudostem have survived, this year the stems rotted down to the ground.

The parts right at soil level seem firm and viable, but since this is a new experience for me I don't know what to expect.

One of the small "pups" appears to have that white fleshy look that seems promising:

So I know that this plant is not completely dead -- it's just that I have no idea how large the growth will get this year. I'm hoping for another size increase over last year of course. (Yay big plants!)

Now that the leaf mulch has all been removed and the sun can heat up the dark soil, I expect to see some growth starting very soon.

It will be quite interesting to see these guys return from virtually "nothing", but that's part of the attraction of spring, isn't it?

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