Despite I believed that Musa Williams was one of the cold-
hardy bananas, it could not overwinter in the ground even
with the cold protection of wrapping by mats of vegetable
materials. The pseudostem and the rhizome were rotten.

For your information, the lowest tempratures of this winter
were as follows:

Nov. 58F, Dec. 29F, Jan. 30F, Feb. 27F, Mar.sofar30F

On the hand,Rajapuri overwintered perfectly in the same
ground and with the same protection.

Stan

You are one of the rare dutch visitors to this forum, and
I do understand why you don't trust any cavendish below
12C/53F.

On the other hand, however, it is interesting to serch
edible species that could grow even in the marginal areas,
and in fact I am growing several bananas inluding Rajapuri,
Dwarf Orinoco, Helen's hybrid, King banana, Williams and
some cavendishes, among which Rajapuri is so far cold
strongest. Musa Basjoo and Sikkimensis are in this case
exceptional as they are always strong enough.

Can you show us what you are growing and what are your
findings?

Thanks,

Stan

How would this Williams do in somewhere like Kalgoorlie where we do get a heck of a lot of heat but does drop to -2C in winter on a few nights?

I moved from the coldest region in Holland to a warmer region. (7b to 8a USDA) But because of gardenweb doesn't recognise a dutch zip-code, I cannot change my profile any more.

About your question:
I have the "normal" bananas for a colder region:
basjoo, sikkimensis, velutina, itinerans, ensete's, Musella Lasiocarpa etc.
And some fruiting species: Dwarf Orinoco, Namwah, Manzano, French Horn, FHIA 23 and 25 and a Grand Naine. The last 3 I overwinter inside my house.
I lost a FHIA 18, Pitogo ans a Zan Moreno due to a grey mold this winter.
The Namwah and Dwarf Orinoco are the strongest here to survive, if you dig them up and store away at ca 5-10 degrees C.
Simon

As I had been in Duesseldorf, Germany for some periods, I
do understand the winter situation there in the northern
parts of Europe.

Not only growing them purely as ornamental, but also with
the purpose of freuiting bananas, it would be considerably
difficult, but I think there should be the ways.
For instance, dwarf species can easily be taken into the
house in the winter time to keep them comfortable
conditions enough to prepare blooming in the coming spring.
This is in fact one of the ways I adopted here and it did
work well.

Stan