Have you been to bananas.org??...I know for me, theres not much going on with my bananas...They're just growing in the house getting ready to go outside when the weather warms up.

knotz

Good tip. Thanks!

I'm here with my teeth chattering in Massachusetts looking out at the yard as the snow falls at six well mulched plants and anxiously awaiting the arrival of spring.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Oh donaldb...I hope they're ok!!!

knotz

Donald, have you gotten them through a winter before? I'm still searching for the mythical zone 5er who can keep a musa basjoo through the winter. I tried for two winters without luck, last year I had a huge cage around them filled with mulch and covered with tarps. They still didn't make it. This fall I finally just dug them up.

If other methods fail to keep your bananas alive through the winter, you can always build a small styrofoam box out of 2" thick blue board, put a flourescent light bulb in the top, and pop it over the banana plants after chopping them off to about two to three feet high stumps in the Fall, depending on how high you want to build the boxes. This works great. It has in zone 4.

My big ol' cavendish that I dug up in the late fall dominates our living room, producing a new leaf every few weeks, fascinating the cat, and irritating my wife, especially since the lower leaves all turns yellow/brown. However, it has produced a pup that is nearly 2 feet tall. In the spring mommy and baby will go their separate ways and if I am lucky this bad boy will flower.

I know of no other plant that grows so fast and looks so tropical than bananas. And they are CHEAP and propagate themselves.

I've been keeping my dwarf cavendish in the laundry room which is unheated. It stays about forty in there and have had no problem with it this winter and North Carolina is seeing its coldest winter yet.I do plan to bring it outdoors next month maybe for daylight and put it back in the laundry room at night if it's cold. I want to get a good start on the plant shoot and leaf unfurling this year. I am in a quandry as it has hit the maximum as far as pots. Anything bigger and I won't be able to handle it. Should I put the plant in the ground after the frosts are over, which here, it's late March, early April? Is doing something like that going to send it into shock? And also, should I fertilize and with what kind of fertilizer and when is the best time to fertilize?

I would definitely put it in the ground once your chance of frost is over. Your banana will love you for that. Water it in once. It will start to grow when the soil temperature gets above 55 to 58 degrees. Once it's put out one full leaf, fertilize and water again. I use composted chicken manure and banana fertilizer which I purchased from Stokes Tropicals here in Louisiana. It has the correct ratio. They love water in the warmer months.

Steve

Thanks for the info Steve, but isn't there a commercial banana fertilizer out there that one could use? I bought this Dwarf last May and never thought to fertilize it as It was repotted when I took it home and it was putting out a leaf every week during the summer. Plus at the very end of summer when temps start to drop, Mommy had seven pups. I saved two that remain with her in my laundry room. Someone last year suggested cutting the stalk down to the corm and I cut the pups back also. He said to use the cut up leaves as insulation for the corm. But they had a tendency to slide off and expose the corm or the pups. So I went out and bought a burlap bag and draped it over the Mom and pups and would put a towel over the burlap just for the colder nights. It has worked so far. I really haven't watered the plant as it seems just moist but not overly wet. I will on a warm day, take the burlap and air it out as it gets moist. The plant seems sturdy and fine and pups are doing well. I can't wait to put it out next month.

I don't think you need a special fertilizer for bananas,anything high in N will keep them growing like crazy,I think miracid may even work better than regular miriclegrow as they do like acid soil,try mixing in some greensand with your soil when you plant it

I have always used miracle grow fertilizer that mixes with water and my bananas love it !