That's bananas!!!

[SprigOfTheLivingDead]

Aside from my normal garden stuff I thought I'd start a specific thread on my trials, tribulations and success with all my banana plants, since it seems to bring some smiles to a few of you

We moved last year and the previous house took too long to sell, so of the 6 or so banana plants I had only a few survived storage, since I had to get them out of the house for showing . The hardest one of those to suffer was the ensete maurellis that I bought when kid #4 was born. Oh well. Mostly starting over at this point.

So at this point none of my originals made it, but I was abke to save two pups from my musa Manzanos, and they're in my living room for good


Everything else is new this season, and I'm super excited to see how they do

- the cages are because the little people in my house don't seem to see the little bananas and step on them, so I put cages on them until they get a little bigger

Outside I have ensete maurelli, a large red leaved variety. Technically it's not a banana, but I like it. There's a Mekong Giant (musa xishuangbannaensis), blood banana (Musa zebrina), which is green with red streaks on the leaves. The Musella Lasiocarpa is a dwarf variety with a giant yellow flower, which I really hope will shine for me. And then, of course, there's my musa Manzanos (apple banana) which can grow to a comfortable 12' high and give out some small bananas that apparently taste like apples. One of my coworkers who grew up in Venezuela actually ate these all the time, so he's excited to see if I can get fruit

More to come, and now that I have a better growing setup I should be able to easily overwinter these inside . Yay plants!

 

[flowerbug]

if you overwinter a larger plant do you have then a better chance of getting fruit the next season?

 

[thistlebloom]

Nice thread, thanks for starting it. Who knew there was so much variety in the banana clan? You have a lovely place too, btw.

 

[SprigOfTheLivingDead]

if you overwinter a larger plant do you have then a better chance of getting fruit the next season?

Potentially. Some people cut them super short near the corm but I try to just cut the leaves off and leave more of the pseudostem in place. I haven't gotten fruit yet.

One problem is it takes around 15 months for a general banana plant to flower then another 5 for the fruit to ripen after they flower, so I would have to time things right, and have some good luck, to have it flower early enough in the spring / summer in order to have enough time to ripen before winter hits :/

 

[SprigOfTheLivingDead]

Nice thread, thanks for starting it. Who knew there was so much variety in the banana clan? You have a lovely place too, btw.

The banana world is HUGE and it's amazing to think how we just eat a single species and the source of that species has such a low germination rate (around 14%) that it's hard to even buy seeds since most places will just clone them, since harvesting seeds isn't worth it.

 

[so lucky]

I think I read that the banana we all buy at the grocery is in danger of succumbing to a virus or mite of some sort. I sure hope "they" figure something out. I would hate to think of banana pudding without bananas.

I used to have some of the more common type. I think I got tired of messing with them one fall and set them out by the road with a "free" sign.
Now I wish I hadn't.

 

[flowerbug]

Potentially. Some people cut them super short near the corm but I try to just cut the leaves off and leave more of the pseudostem in place. I haven't gotten fruit yet.

One problem is it takes around 15 months for a general banana plant to flower then another 5 for the fruit to ripen after they flower, so I would have to time things right, and have some good luck, to have it flower early enough in the spring / summer in order to have enough time to ripen before winter hits :/

oh wow! almost 2yrs! amazing that we can buy them at the store year round for not too much money. i wonder if anyone is working on a shorter season variety? i do know that there are many different kinds and would love to be able to try them all but the chances of that here not living in the tropics is pretty slim...

i hope you can get this to work.

 

[SprigOfTheLivingDead]

oh wow! almost 2yrs! amazing that we can buy them at the store year round for not too much money. i wonder if anyone is working on a shorter season variety? i do know that there are many different kinds and would love to be able to try them all but the chances of that here not living in the tropics is pretty slim...

i hope you can get this to work.

Different varieties fruit differently and once a banana fruits it dies but then sends up pups, so it's not that you really have to replant them if you have a plantation. A couple of acres of bananas would be a fun thing to have

 

[seedcorn]

While in Hawaii, we were told that if you disliked someone, you planted a banana tree in their back yard. Sounds like mulberries for us.

 

[SprigOfTheLivingDead]

While in Hawaii, we were told that if you disliked someone, you planted a banana tree in their back yard. Sounds like mulberries for us.

That hilarious.

Up here I guess that would be Lilies. So pretty, but terribly aggressive.