I am in zone 6 and grew two sikkimensis last season. They were more beautiful than basjoo and reached nine feet from small plants rapidly. My basjoos came back this season but the two sikkis did not. They are very prone to rot and my best efforts to cage them and keep them dry failed.Harder to find as pups than basjoo .

This was my first winter with a sikkimensis. It died back to the ground but there are two pups starting to come up, and this was without any protection except several inches of leaves.

I like sikkimensis better than basjoo because the leaves don't shred as easily in the wind. I also got conflicting info about hardiness, so I decided just to buy a small one and experiment.

I'm too new with it to give you growth rates, but first year growth was comparable to first year basjoo growth.

I think speed of growth and number of pups vary tremendously based on soil, fertilizer, temps and water. When everything is perfect, bananas grow like crazy, especially if they've been established in the ground for several years.

I planted three Sikkimensis in the garden last year. We had a very mild winter - the Basjoos were left unprotected, laughed off the frost and started regrowing in April with intact pseudostems. The Sikkis were a different matter. Two of them (with plain green leaves) seem to have been killed. The third, a 'Red Tiger', was cut to the ground but is growing back now - with one pup and growth from the centre of the pseudostem.

I don't fertilise my plants much, and also here in the UK our light levels are comparatively low, but even in last year's dismal excuse for a summer, the 'Red Tiger' put on impressive growth.