Impressive :)

Wow its gonna get huge this year

No doubt....these are really fun to watch grow-
along with the Thai giant and Castor bean plants.

I also added E.Glaucum and E.Ventricosum(-:

Im going to show a pic of your eneste to my eneste and maybe it will give it a nice kick to start taking off and growing lol! At least mine is finally making leaves again. Considering I had to cut it down inside about 4 times, I would say its not doing too badly. But your Eneste is going to be a beauty. I say that by early July, its going to be a giant!
Good luck!
-Alex

wow, that looks great! How did you over-winter?

LOL -Alex

12' last year,should be huge this year if the storms don't get it.

mastiffoo

It was kept in the cool basement,with a few friends.

Great job Jim

Big a$$ trunk! At what temperature do you keep it in the basement. I will have to overwinter my Siam Ruby this year?

Jim, what can I say? Simply impressive! Now that I know it is that simple (assuming it is that simple), I will most certainly give it a try. What type of TLC was needed, if I may ask??
Thanks!!!

TLC-0
Temps 45-65

Just put it down there and come back in April(-:

Chad

Siam ruby is a tough one to overwinter and I would bet
it will not just sit anywhere with temps under 70 and less that
3hrs sun a day for very long.

Rowe red is a similar banana in this regard,the 3 stalks all
the way on the left are this one....it had disintegrated by April.

That's a big boy! And some crazy fast growth for only 2 days. I'm trying another one of these myself (possibly 2) after not doing so well with one a couple summers ago. Apparently it's possible to overwater these and give them root rot...I just thought it needed to be treated like a typical musa. Apparently not. Now that I know better, maybe I'll have better results.

I believe I have an Abyssinian also purchased last year. Labeled only as Bananna Ensette. Mine is in ground and gained little size last year. Is there a trick to growing these verses Musa? Have had success with my bananas but not this one.

No tricks but as Ryan mentioned,they don't need
as much water as reg Bananas,although in the heat
watering well is fine.
Mine is planted to close to a Maple tree so it
probably won't get over watered with that much competition.

t

Thanks for the feedback but one more question if you do not mind.Are they slow growers or do they grow at the same rate as bananas? I have Black Thai,Basjoo,Ice Cream, and a newly aquired mail order Saba pup which is already jumping into high gear and spitting out new leaves and height. All my bananas have done very well the first and second year but this one seems to be stunted unless they slow growers.Cannot find a whole lot of info on the web and trying to determine what I should expect as far as growth rate.

Well.........

Let's just say,they have their own style-for instance....
They put out several leaves at a time so,you can't mark
the roller and see how much it grew that day/hour(-: like
you can with regular Banana plants.

They also grow massive trunks,probably as much(or more)than
5x as big around as a Banana at a comparable height and in
some cases maybe 20x bigger,depending on what stage it's at.

Here is the history of the one I have.
First leaf it grew here after I planted it.

June 6 2009

{{gwi:404317}}

First years growth-Aug 30, 2009

{{gwi:404319}}

In front of a west window Feb 2, 2010

{{gwi:404321}}

June 6,2010

July 7,2010-Thai giant in front of it.

Oct 8,2010-just about ready to dig it up.

Oct 31,2010-going into the basement for winter storage

Stored away,same day.

May 9,2011

Yesterday(May 17th)

Thanks Jim !!

I tried to overwinter 2 under the crawl space of my house this past winter but they turned to mush. I love the Ensetes so much much so I went out and bought 2 more for this growing season. If I had to do it over, I would've cut it down and brought at least one inside.

The trunk started to get some real girth the last month of our growing season (South Jersey).

How big were the ones you brought in?

As you can see above,I brought mine in after it's first year
outside,that following spring/to fall it was obviously to big to bring in again(-:

One thing you need to be careful about(o.k.2 things(-;)is damaging any part
of it when you bring it in as they can rot if they get bruised....another is that,although some folks
successfully overwinter them laying down,it really is best
to stand them up as straight as possible on something not to hard
underneath....if they are laid down water can pool on one side and they again will rot/dry rot.
All that said,sometimes you can just throw these in a corner and forget about them and they'll do fine.

Some of my Bananas rotted in the middle just from being leaned,slightly
against a wall and some.... from damage bringing them in-

I guess you could say it pays to be careful.

Both plants PStems were about 4 feet. I chopped off all the leaves except one. Maybe the problem I had was laying them down in the crawl space.

I brought in a Saba, Praying Hands, lots of Super Dwarf Cavendishes and several Zebrinas.

Fortunately, I won't be able to try to overwinter the 2 Ensetes that are planted outside this year. The Army is moving me back to Hawaii so I hope I can get a couple more there and see how big it'll get with year round growth during the next 3 years.

By far, this is my favorite banana plant.

They are a lot of fun,I will have to post another pic of this one in a few days.

I am sure yours will love Hawaii!

Heres a few more and one of the Abyssinian from today 5-22-11

Chin cactus

Check out how much the beast has grown in exactly one month
-(May 9 to June 9)since the first pic was taken.

The longest leaf is 7'!

It's getting big, I see you had to stake it! Those giant leaves are like sails.

Wow! Yours is looking great! Im so angry at how much mine died back indoors. It probably wont look nice for the entire summer (its still not even a foot tall!). Yours will be a giant (actually it already is!). I think you will be getting blooms this year from it!!
Good luck!
-Alex

Jim, that's a great compilation of pictures of your banana. I appreciate you putting in that effort for the rest of us! Very nice, how is your Thai Giant doing? Mine are just starting to get noticeably larger than when I planted them.

BTW...you don't want blooms on an Abyssinian. Blooms=death. I'm sure you know, but they don't pup like a normal banana. Not sure if there's a way to get them to bloom sooner, but you don't want it. I had a Ventricosum that bloomed at 5 or 6 feet tall, and then it died.

I hope it doesn't bloom anytime soon,I would imagine some kind of profound
stress might cause this but these can reach 30-40',I believe so,it shouldn't be on the horizon
anytime soon-hopefully.

Chad They really are like sails!
I am just being carefull,the weather has been back and forth between
cool and hot(lots of wind) and I don't want a storm to
take it out -if possible-sometimes(maybe always(-;)you
gotta follow your instincts!

Ryan

Heres a pic of the big giant I had last year and one of a small
one I panted this year.
The little guy is taking off,biggest leaf is about six inches
and it's keeping pace with the bigger one.
Usually if they put out a 10" leaf the next one will be 15" etc.
Hail and wind damage to the bigger ones the second leaf )-:

The bigger one,biggest leaf is about 23"-it's getting big fast,next leaf that is just opening should be 30"+

nice pics jim. The Abyssinian is huge and it gre so many leaves in such a short time.