Trax
Active Member
I got very interested in banana plants, last fall, when I helped someone save 4 Ice Cream banana plant pups. He gave me 3 of the pups (young banana plants) but the only way I could keep them was as houseplants through the winter. They needed almost no care and I planted them outside this spring. Now they are at least 8 feet tall and very healthy!
What really amazed me was that you could store the plants near a sunny window almost like they were luggage. They needed almost no water so I was able to put them in small pots and lean them against a wall in a back room where they took up very little space. Now they're in the back yard making shade and looking very tropical!
Btw, did you know that the leaves of banana plants are edible. So are their huge flowers! I've studied banana plants a lot and talked with professional growers in other countries. If anyone would like to know more about them, I'll be very happy to add more info to the thread.
I live in zone 7. Another little known fact about bananas is that they can survive and produce fruit as far north as zone 5! And the fruit is much sweeter than the store-bought Williams & Cavendish cultivars and come in many flavors!
Anyway, here are some photos I just took of a pair of Rojo Zebrina banana plants that arrived, by FedEx, about 1 1/2 hours ago. These get up to 8 feet tall with red splotched green leaves that get as much as 3 feet long! The stem is also very reddish! They will stay indoors for a week with very little water, then in the shade on the deck with more water for another week, then be planted in-ground. This fall I will dig them up, pot them, and store them till spring.
The roots were very healthy:
My bike pump should give you an idea of the size of the plants. There's some spots on the pump cause it had just started raining so I had to hurry:
What really amazed me was that you could store the plants near a sunny window almost like they were luggage. They needed almost no water so I was able to put them in small pots and lean them against a wall in a back room where they took up very little space. Now they're in the back yard making shade and looking very tropical!
Btw, did you know that the leaves of banana plants are edible. So are their huge flowers! I've studied banana plants a lot and talked with professional growers in other countries. If anyone would like to know more about them, I'll be very happy to add more info to the thread.
I live in zone 7. Another little known fact about bananas is that they can survive and produce fruit as far north as zone 5! And the fruit is much sweeter than the store-bought Williams & Cavendish cultivars and come in many flavors!
Anyway, here are some photos I just took of a pair of Rojo Zebrina banana plants that arrived, by FedEx, about 1 1/2 hours ago. These get up to 8 feet tall with red splotched green leaves that get as much as 3 feet long! The stem is also very reddish! They will stay indoors for a week with very little water, then in the shade on the deck with more water for another week, then be planted in-ground. This fall I will dig them up, pot them, and store them till spring.
The roots were very healthy:
My bike pump should give you an idea of the size of the plants. There's some spots on the pump cause it had just started raining so I had to hurry: