Ensete dig out!

So these are  just three that I have to dig out today. The first is my oldest Maurelli. They don't look big but I can assure you they are heavy.

The reason they are so very heavy is the amount of water they hold. You can understand why when you look at a close up and see the little pockets that hold water.

A slightly smaller Maureli, which I intend to store in a totally different way. It is still relatively small so I am not sure it would get through the winter dry stored.

On the Hardy Tropical site on Facebook someone over wintered a Maurelli in a pot of soil. The art is to keep it slightly damp and not wet! So here we go, first time for everything. It will be interesting to see how this goes. I will keep you posted.

Finally my Hiniba. This really struggled to get going this year and to be honest I thought it would be touch and go as to whether it would grow. As you can see, it did and it did it well.

After following Yorkshire Kris's You tube video on how he propagated his Hiniba, I thought 'well why not give it a go'. So this is where you will follow my journey.

First you have to dig it out! Not easy but just about doable.

Then Yorkshire Kris used a large bread knife to cut through the trunk. Which I just about managed. this is only about 4 inches from the roots.

I then had to cut this in half. I could not do this with a knife, the central bit is really tough so I had to use a saw.

I then had to cut them again, so now have 4 pieces all with a bit of the central corm and all with some roots.

I then dusted all four with yellow sulphur. Then popped them each into a pot of compost.

The compost was then dusted with ground cinnamon, I found this works well against any fungal diseases.

They are now in the back bedroom which is not the warmest in the house, and no the radiator is not on, but it is relatively bright. We shall see. Time will tell.