Tigerlaff

:lol: hell yeah brother glad you saw the light. Should have sold it. People love those things for some inexplicable reason. Although I can also understand not selling it just for the satisfaction of chopping it down.

Got my flamethrower palm on Etsy but the shop closed down. Make sure you get the variant you want. Regular, watermelon, or Hookeri.

Trees are weird. My loquats are the only ones on planet earth without blooms this year. Every other tree in South Louisiana is uncharacteristically loaded. I'm sure your DH is probably just being prudent this year and waiting for Jan/Feb.

I'm really hoping Florida does not get a crazy cold blast. Could be an unbelievable and early mango season.

I knew 100% that the rug would be pulled in some shocking or dramatic fashion. We do need a reconstructed roller coaster meme for this season though.

Step 1: don't have complete dogshit scheme and play calling on offense.

Step 2: that's it.

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Thankfully, Trump has not managed to destroy the democratic republic, despite his efforts. It’s doubtful that Vance will ever be president. If he does achieve office, he will be no more than a blip on history’s radar…

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:lol: yes, the cherished "democratic republic." We are currently on version 5.0 of this.

Articles of Confederation
Constituon of 1789
Reconstruction
New Deal
Great Society / Civil Rights regime

So please, no appeals to any sort of imagined continuous history. The rug has been pulled multiple times and the nation reinvented whether poplar support for those changes existed or not. We are about to go through the next phase of whatever America is becoming and I certainly hope version 6.0 is not the legal and cultural regime we live under currently.

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The general public thinks LSU is scum over this

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I want you to seriously think about this. LSU is your direct competitor and rival. We play each other every year. You are our enemy. You had something good and we took it, which is exactly what we should have done and exactly what you would have done to us if given the chance.

The more stem the better. There is some luck involved too. The flower moves from the ground all the way up the inside of the stem to the crown. I have had some on the cusp of flowering then the freeze kills the top of the stem. As I start cutting I cut right through the flower on the inside. Just protect as much as you can. After a few years you'll have multiple large stems every year and your odds get better. Also don't cut off the frozen leaves. Let them hang down and shroud the stem for more insulation.

Final recommendation is don't even bother trying any of this with a Cavendish type banana like dwarf Cavendish or gran nain unless you live in central FL or warmer. The cultivars you want are namwah, dwarf namwah, blue java, rajapuri, orinoco (plantain), goldfinger, etc. If you are anything colder than 9a you are pretty much limited to orinoco.

Almost forgot, happy winter solstice. Every day from now on is more daylight. Huge deal at my house with too much shade.

Nice. None of mine flowered this year. Very weird because every other one I see is flowering like crazy. But I did a lot of transplanting this year and they may be reestablishing first.

It depends on what your goal is. If your goal is attractive foliage, then yes, you did the right thing by chopping down the unsightly plant. If you are trying to get fruit, you never chop them down to the ground until winter is over and you are sure the whole pseudostem died. Instead you start cutting from the top until the brown dead tissue is gone and you hit green/white tissue. It will shoot new leaves from the middle as the weather warms and eventually flower. From your photo, you can tell that pseudostem was still totally alive. There is no brown tissue at all. But the underground corm is still very much alive and will send up new stems in spring.

And yes, banana leaves make excellent mulch. They are loaded with potassium and they break down fast. There is no better chop and drop mulch than banana leaves. I put all my dead leaves at the base of the banana plants and they do great. Also excellent for cooking, like tomale wraps.

Amazing :lol: