I received 2 banana plants (hardy Musa Basjoo) last year and overwintered both of them in my sunroom. One was about 3x larger than the other at the time. The person I received these from has them growing in their garden (in St. Louis) and they are constantly making pups every year so he gives away what he does not want - and I got two!

This spring, I repotted the larger one in a large fiberglass planter so that I could bring it into my sunroom again over the winter, and I put the smaller one in the ground near a two-block high retaining wall. This bed is not very large...maybe 3' deep and 6' wide and contains a large hosta and some heuchera. My hope is that the banana will help shade the hosta so that it does not get sunburned.

The question I have is this.... This smaller banana has already caught up in size to the one in the pot and has already started two pups - will I have issues with it outgrowing its bounds really quickly? I don't really want it to grow into the root zone of the hosta, and wondered if this will be difficult to control. My other option is to move the hosta (it is a LARGE 6'+ diameter Sum and Substance hosta) and simply let the banana take over the bed or to put the banana elsewhere....

Your thoughts?

BettyLu