My solution

Yesterday I wrote about my dilemma with regard to the bananas and my leaves. Most of the suggestions in the comments were in line with what I was thinking already...

...so today I'm showing you what my solution was.

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I did a bit more reading about overwintering Musa basjoo in colder climates after writing yesterday's post, and although I've always mulched over the pseudostems I've never covered them to protect them from rain or snow. Keeping them dry apparently helps in preventing rot, so I thought I'd give that a try this year.

Knowing that the mulch material (leaves in this case) needed to be dry of course, and since the forecast for yesterday afternoon called for rain, I got out there at lunch and raked!

I collected them in the fencing that will eventually be placed around the bananas, and covered over them with a sheet of plastic.

This was what I was hoping to avoid -- the temporary storage of these leaves until they mulch the bananas -- but it ended up being inevitable.

Great job!



Until the winds started and blew the cover off that is.

We got some hard rain but it appeared to arrive before the plastic blew off...

...so the leaves are still nice and dry. Whew!

Unfortunately the banana leaves are now shredded and look pretty terrible...

...so there's no compelling reason for me to keep them around anymore. I might as well just chop them down, mulch and cover them, and start getting accustomed to their absence for the winter.

Funny how Nature ends up making some decisions for us, isn't it?

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