Monster in Florida?.... Botanically speaking.

    This post is just to get you away from regular RV stuff for a bit. Looking at the DOW doesn't help either.

  I live in central Florida - West Coast... Zone 9, botanically speaking. Just a couple of pix below of a plant that I bought 4 years ago at Home Depot.  It was small, in a small pot. I knew it would grow larger so I put it into a 12" (30cm) pot and grew it one year. The next year it was 2x its size.

  Then I decided to put it in a nice spot in my lawn beside the house. One thing to know about certain parts of Florida is that we live on mostly pure sand, nice yellow sand, for many feet below the surface. Below that is the limestone aquifer, which supplies us with fresh water, like a huge cavern.

  Well, anyway the next year the plant took hold and grew quickly. Now it is 4 years later, 2008, and the pictures below will show the monster. It is now over 14' tall  (4.3m).

  What is that plant?  It is a "White Bird Of Paradise", Lat: Strelitzia Nicholai.. It is of the banana family.

  Now my problem is that it is is very frost sensitive; we do get the occasional frosty night here and it will destroy it. Mind you it will grow back from the roots the next year..... The last few years I was able to tie (bundle) it up nicely, wrap it with blankets, put a 100W lights inside and save it. But this coming winter I have a chore on my hands.  I hope you all feel sorry for me.  ;D

  Whatever, enjoy.  carson FL 80.1F  (26C)

Pix 1..last year
Pix 2.. This year Carol and me
Pix 3... Self portrait while waiting for girls shopping at Chico. (not botanical).


 

Hi Carson,

Hope you find a way to save that monster plant.

I thought you were going to say you had a Brazilian Pepper Tree. We have them all over this area and they will eventually take over and eradicate the native plants. The Nature Club at TGO has started a program to eliminate all the pepper trees. Won't happen but maybe we can get them under control. I brought a chain saw back with me this year to make the job a little easier. We cut the plants down and them apply an herbicide to kill the roots. Even painting around the trunk will kill the tree.

This plant was brought in as an ornamental tree for yards. I noticed, when we were at KSC for the Blue Angels show that the pepper tree has taken over much of their area and that's part of the National Wildlife area!! Why do we continue to do this to our country???

Are you sure that's not an Audrey plant?

Jim Dick said:

...This plant was brought in as an ornamental tree for yards. I noticed, when we were at KSC for the Blue Angels show that the pepper tree has taken over much of their area and that's part of the National Wildlife area!! Why do we continue to do this to our country???

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And then there's kudzu.  It was brought in for erosion control a half-century ago...   

Hi Frank,

Yes, Kudzu is a real problem.  More so I think, in the Carolinas. I have noticed some vines overtaking native trees here but they seem to have smaller leaves. Kudzu makes everything look like a Disney World sculpture garden!

Re my monster plant... It is supposed to bloom at age 6.  So stand by for action.  ;D

carson FL

Speaking of non-native species.  I've seen some ads in the Las Vegas newspaper for nurseries selling eucalyptus trees.  Now I realize they're good drought plants, but why on earth would people want to start them in southwestern deserts as a non-native species.  They're dirty and messy in a yard but, worse, when they get large they're huge fire hazards.  Some of you may recall that awful fire a few years back that was in the hills behind Oakland CA (above the Caldecott Tunnel) where the oil in the eucalyptus trees quite literally exploded.  Because we were in the middle of a drought at the time the eucalyptus trees were a major factor in that devastating fire.  I wish the nurseries in all our areas were more sensitive to native species and stop importing plants from elsewhere.

ArdraF

I agree ArdraF, the list goes on. When I lived in San Mateo, Ca, I remember eucalyptus trees every where. Yes they are very dirty. Some of the nurseries here in FL are selling plants that are on the official "invasive species" list. One flowering plant they sell is here is "Wedelia". The will choke out anything in their way. Their reach goes many feet. I have pulled probably 1000' by now; but they have pretty flowers; I guess that counts. Luckily the die quickly wit a little frost but they'll be back next year.

  In the Fauna area, did you know that there are oodles of Boa Constrictors loose in the Everglades? Not native.

  Come to think of it, I am not native either...came from Washington State.  ;D

  My monster plant is considered semi-native and I know it won't snap at you.

    Whatarewegonnado??

carson FL

Carson,

You may remember many years ago there was an epidemic of Walking Catfish in Florida. They came from some other country and were released by individuals that got tired of them in their aquariums. Suddenly they were taking over the many ponds that exist in this State. They had the ability to "walk" on their fins. The government, in their infinite wisdom, decided to poison the ponds where they existed. They did so but the catfish, being much more intelligent than government officials, just "walked" to the next pond. Sure put egg on many faces in Florida!!

Jim Dick said:

Carson,

You may remember many years ago there was an epidemic of Walking Catfish in Florida...

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A few years ago in Palm Bay, I was driving to work one morning in the rain after a couple of days of hard rain that left ditches full with a lot of standing water.  I looked up ahead and thought, "What on earth is that on the road?"  As I got closer I realized it was several Walking Catfish squirming across the road from one side to the other.  They were about a foot long or so.

Frank,

Apparently there were a couple of catfish on our road during the heavy rains but, thankfully, they weren't the walking catfish.

Monster plant... a little update:

   Recently we have had a few nights of freezing temperatures, approx 25? at 6 in the AM. Last year no such thing. I was worried by my Monster plant, now 14' tall. Did not have enough blankets/tarps to cover it. I decided to do what the farmers do around here on their crops.. sprinkle water on them during the freezing hours. It worked; ice formed on all the leaves, the branches drooped from the weight and I thought I had the remedy. Wrong,  after the frosty nights were gone, all leaves turned brown. I know there is no way to rejuvenate them, except to paint them green. I nixed that idea.

   I also noticed that a lot of Palm trees in the neighborhood had sustained damage and they will not recover easily, if ever. My little plant, 14' in height is more like a succulent, soft and full of water. (It's a 'Bird of Paradise' extraordinaire. So it would be easy to trim down as compared to the ordinary palm trees 40' in height.

   I have posted 4 pix below of the before and after, including another plant (Bougainvillea) that got hit as well. Maybe I should move to Montana.  ;D

   My hope is that I will bore you to death. I was hoping to pick some flowers for my DW  for Valentines Day; guess she'll have to wait until next year.

   How about a new topic on "Shade Tree" labeled "Flora in Motion". Anyone carry plants around?

carson FL

No-one has mentioned the Burmese pythion so far.  60,000 have been imported in the last decade.  When they get so big that if you hang them around your neck both ends trail on the ground, some owners take the easy route out and release them into the Florida swamps.

They can get to be HUGE, and National Geographic did a TV special about one huge python that swallowed a full size alligator.  NOT kidding here, I saw the show.  The python was probably attacked and killed by another alligator while still trying to ingest the first alligator, and the dead python and the dead (swallowed) alligator were found later, with the (perhaps) eight foot alligator swallowed up to his rear legs.

The same thing has been witnessed here in The Great Outdoors in Florida. The python crept up on the alligator and put five or six wraps round it and started to squeeze.  Some people threw stuff at the python and it slunk away.

What this has to do with original post about a possible banana tree I'm not sure.  It's just that I saw the TV show and could hardly believe it.

Rankjo

carson said:

Monster plant... a little update:

   Recently we have had a few nights of freezing temperatures, approx 25? at 6 in the AM. ...
   I also noticed that a lot of Palm trees in the neighborhood had sustained damage and they will not recover easily, if ever....

carson FL

Click to expand...

The palm trees should recover.  I've never seen a palm tree in Central Florida killed by the cold in the 34 years we've lived here. 

Norfolk Island Pine trees, which you would swear are totally dead, can come back if left alone.

Citrus trees are another story.  Mid-20s for long hours can kill them without hope of recovery.

One thing comes to mind when I look at Carsons plant,  "CHAIN SAW" !

  This is only for my fans of the above topic.    ;D

A little 2009 update. 2008 took care of my pet plant, as shown in pictures above.

Well, now it is Sep 09 and guess what, a rebirth of my pet. I wonder how large it'll grow next year if we have another cold winter coming up.

  The latest pix below....

carson FL

Carson I am your friend, but I need  firewood! :

LOL, Mark. It'll work better as a fire extinguisher... I think it is about 90% water.

Carson,

Would love to see the flowers on that plant!!!! They must be monstrous!

Jim. so would I.. They are white and purple, same as the Hawaiian Bird of Paradise. Trouble is the wont bloom for several years. Seems I might lose the parent growth every winter due to frost.

  Then they regrow from the bottom up with new sprouts. Guess I'll have to wait a long time to see blossoms on my pet. Take a look at the pix below..

carson FL

http://www.stokestropicals.com/white-bird-of%20paradise-39.htm  here