Five Bananas and the Plant that Bit Me�

2002-10-14

Five banana tress. What in the world am I going to do with five banana trees?! I found a really cool site that sells tropical plants, including banana trees. I've been wanting a banana tree ever since I decided that tropical plants would probably survive better in the microclimate of my garden (which has proved true thus far). This site had more varieties of banana than I'd seen anywhere else. I wanted a dwarf banana; a full sized banana would be a little large for my mini-garden. They had a 'dwarf banana collection'. For some reason I thought it was going to be three plants. I've never grown bananas before. I figured that if I got a couple different kinds I would better my chances of finding one that would like it in my garden. But there were five! I had to go out and buy more pots. We really don't need MORE pots on the patio. You can hardly walk from one end to the other as it is.

My little quacker has moved. It's now in the purple salvia. A good choice for any small animal in my garden. It has the densest foliage and will provide the best defense against marauding felines I thought perhaps it was gone, or a figment of my imagination, but I heard it again last night. Three or four little quacks at dusk. It sounds lonely to me.

The purple hankie vine bit me this weekend. Darn thing is trying to take over the world. It's been shooting vines out over the windows, up to the roof, down around and among the pots near the wall. Everywhere. I finally decided I needed to cut it back. I cut several long shoots off and started to fold them up to put in the trash can, several of them brushed my arm. My arm immediately started to burn where it had brushed me. I went inside and washed my arm. I've run into this before. Wash it off or it can get much worse. Later, when I went inside for the night, I looked at my arm. There were huge welts all up and down in the inside of my arm. This is one plant that is in no way defenseless. Yikes! It does look rather carnivorous.

I moved the turtle pond out from underneath the patio cover so they would get more sun. Unfortunately, I think they still won't get any direct sunlight until after four in the afternoon. A little too late for turtle basking. I'm thinking of moving them further down the patio so they can get more sun time. Depending on how fast the plants grow, I can probably shade them with a banana tree or two. It would probably be good to move them away from the end of the patio anyway. The Japanese elms are about to start losing leaves and dropping seeds. The pond would get full of them in very short order.

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