treeguy, concerning your Gardenweb post about your bananas not being well mulched, did your bananas survive?

Hi tsmith,

Thanks for your interest. The plants did indeed survive the 08-09 winter. Both the M. basjoo and the Colocasia 'Pink China' came back from the roots.

This past winter (09-10), I made a greater effort at protecting the M. basjoo and 'pink china'. I cut all the leaves off the basjoo once they were killed by frost, wrapped the pseudostems in outdoor Christmas lights, made a 2x2 wood frame with a plywood top, stuffed plastic bags filled with leaves in with the pseudostems, and wrapped the whole thing with a tarp. I kept the Christmas lights on any time the temperature was below freezing. This worked extremely well and the entire pseudostems survived the winter. They started out this spring with no decrease in height! For the 'pink china' elephant ears, I dug a few as insurance and mulched the bed with about 5 inches of mulch. This too worked extremely well and nearly all the bulbs in the ground have resprouted. Here's a picture of the M. basjoo stems prior to wrapping and tarping:
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