Hi Mark! I'm just down I-40 a ways from you in KnoxVegas. I've had Musa cheesmani outside for one full winter, this being the second. It came back slower than basjoo or sikkimensis, or Musa sp. 'Yunnan', but it got going once the heat kicked in. I had it protected under a bag of leaves, but the pseudostem got center-leaf-rot, so it had to come back from the corm. As you know though, last year was not a good year to grow bananas with the extreme drought.

Thanks fglavin,
This year was a very bad year indeed for bananas. My tallest this year was only 12ft. tall,a basjoo.
Most of mine only got around 6 or 7ft. tall. That late cold spell also claimed many of my bananas. I lost my largest a large red iholene that got nearly 20ft.the year before. It also got all of my velentinas. I had all of them mulched but they were already growing and the cold got them. I also lost my Yunnan bananas.I didn't loose any of my palms though.I have over 30 in my yard right now. I am trying many differant ones to test my luck. I have 29 cheesmani that I grew from seed last year to plant in the yard. I will be busy for a while when spring comes around. My house looks like a jungle right now.

I learned the past few years that if you don't cut down the banana stalks during the winter they have a better chance surviving the winter. I lost several last winter that I cut off. All of the ones I didn't cut down survived. Unfortionatly my Cheesmanis was some of the ones I cut off last winter. None of them survived the Last spring freeze.