Banana Tree - Help

Very simple game. No flowers means no fruit.

NO!

Yes. In fact, it would be a good idea to do so if you want edible bananas.

Hi All,

I'm usually over at the orchids group but have a banana question.

I have a banana "tree". Someone gave me a piece of one two years ago. I grew it in the greenhouse for the winter and placed it outdoors in the summer. It grew slowly until this summer and now it's 8 feet tall in a 12 inch clay pot. It's very exotic on the patio but now it's too large to fit back into the greenhouse this winter.

It hasn't put out any small plants around the base yet or I'd just take one and grow from there again.

With winter coming what do you recommend for me to do with this hugh beast? I was thinking about putting it into the garage where it would winter over with the geraniums and other half hardy perennials in pots.

Good Growing, Gene

:) I have a banana "tree". Someone gave me a piece of one two years ago. I :) grew it in the greenhouse for the winter and placed it outdoors in the :) summer. It grew slowly until this summer and now it's 8 feet tall in a 12 :) inch clay pot. It's very exotic on the patio but now it's too large to fit :) back into the greenhouse this winter. :) :) It hasn't put out any small plants around the base yet or I'd just take one :) and grow from there again. :) :) With winter coming what do you recommend for me to do with this hugh beast? :) I was thinking about putting it into the garage where it would winter over :) with the geraniums and other half hardy perennials in pots.

You could go ahead and let it die back with the first freeze, maybe protect the clay pot more so the rootball won't freeze, cut it back then place the pot back in the green house and let it start over again next Spring.

Lar. (to e-mail, get rid of the BUGS!!

It is said that the early bird gets the worm, but it is the second mouse that gets the cheese.

NO! The flower makes the fruit. Support the tree!

Yes, actually, you can. The flower part works it way down a really long stalk and produces bananas as it grows. You can easily see where it stops producing fruit and chop the flower thingy off well below that. The tree somehow knows how many bananas to produce - maybe from the weight or who knows. But after its last row of bananas, no more will be produced from the flowers even though the big red flower thing keeps producing the flowers. Someone has already posted an informative link on bananas and their fruit. Go read up on that. :) Chris

First of all, Bananas are giant herbs not trees. They have no woody trunk.

You might try overwintering it in the garage but you must consider giving it artificial light and supplemental heat so that it will not suffer from being in extended periods of darkness or too cold.

Banana trees. :-) Many years ago as a teenager, i started with one and in a few years had many. Now I feel you will say that this won't work, but by summer's end the plant was too big to do much of anything with. I would take a machete and slap through the trunk about 4 feet high, dig the root ball, put it in the dark crawlspace, where the furnace also was, and forget about it until spring.

I never lost one, large or small.

FACE

You overwintered your bananas as one would cannas.

Further proof that the banana is just a giant herb not a tree.

BTW, bananas don't have a trunk. What you cut through were the fleshy leaf bases.