Garden Designers & Landscape Gardeners
Garden Buildings in South & East England

Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii'.
Commonly known as the 'Abyssinian Banana' originating from Ethiopia where it can grow to 6m tall, producing leaves with stiff mid ribs that keep them mostly upright so that the overall spread of the plant can be as little as 3m. The variety 'Maurelii' has red flushed through most of the leaf as opposed to only the mid rib on the species of E. ventricosum. It will not withstand any but the lightest frost and must be either container grown or planted out for the summer after storage in a greenhouse over winter. The latter method of cultivation requires the removal of all leaves and 90% of the root come winter time and a fair amount of manpower to move the trunk if it is of any size - they consist mostly of water and are incredibly heavy. Although this is a lot of work it is worth it as there is nothing that comes close to evoking the lush tropics like this plant does, and if you have a warm sunny corner with some shelter from the wind you can expect extremely rapid growth which is ample reward for the trouble taken. 
Splendid photos courtesy of emagen on flickr.com, see their link on our Resources page.