Hi there,

There are a few ways to overwinter them but here's what I found works for me. The first is to dig them out of the big pot (or garden if they are growing direct in the ground), transplant into smaller pots (you'll have to judge the size of the pot to use). Water sparingly. Bring indoors on a sunny (or bright light) windowsill and over winter like a houseplant. Don't over water and let the soil dry out between watering. They won't grow much in winter and are prone to insect attacks but I found this method to be fairly reliable.

Another method that worked for me is to basically do the same (dig out and transplant into a smaller pot) and keep in cool dark basement until spring. I've had one where I cut off all the leaves except for the top center one and ones where I just kept them on. I also had some getting a bit of dull light from a basement window, and another in a dark corner. Here especially, since they are mostly in the dark, I water very sparingly, maybe once every few weeks and just a small amount of water.

I also dug up a plant, placed the base of it in a plastic garbage bag, and threw in the basement laundry room for winter. It's surprisingly how long they hang in there with some green growth even when they haven't had sunlight for a while. I would water just a bit over the root ball once in a while.

One caution I frequently had to spray all of them with neem oil and water during the winter to ward off aphid attacks.

Other people likely have their own method for overwintering. Sometimes you just have to use what works for you considering the space you have, temperature, etc. Unfortunately my basement isn't very cold (60F) but seemed to do the trick.

Glen

I have a dwarf cavendish in a large pot and I put it into a dark closet for the winter. I kept the light on there sometimes to give it a little light but other than that it was really in the dark. My main problem with it was the leaves were still growing but they were comming out whitish but the light helped green them up. I took them outside in the spring and the mother plant rotted but the pups didnt and now it has at least 5 new pups. Its a little smaller than it was last year but still a nice plant.
I recommend you take it out of its pot, cut the root ball back a little (just enough to fit in a smaller pot) put it in the pot (you probably dont even have to completely pot it in the pot, you could just put some soil and the root ball in there. Store it in a place where it will get light but not too much and a slightly cooler place (low to mid 60s) would be good. Dont water it unless you plan on growing it all winter long indoors and if you are than this method wont work very well.
Good lucK!

We'd had the good fortune for several years of a mild winter here in Alabama. So I started putting in alocasia, colocasia, and several bananas to give a tropical look to my southside garden spots.

Well, last winter in Mobile we had 13 days in a row below freezing, some down to the high teens, and it started early in the season being cold in general. I bought some hay bales, I got pine straw. I put light gauge green garden fencing around the potted plants like my split leaf philodendrons and massed the ferns together and did the same for them, adding a fairly tight packing of hay and straw around the plants. I did cut off some of the spraddley leaves to keep the plant compact.

The bananas were all in the ground. I did the same to them, and trimmed them back as well. However, I did not have much hope of anything surviving after the second week of cold was coming to an end. Nonetheless, I left them alone until it was very warm in the spring, then unwrapped them. It looks pathetic. I felt they'd all died, because even the center of the mother stalks were mushy. The alocasias looked like a cow patties on the ground....what could possibly grow out of that.

Well, it took a while, but even the smallest of the bananas started growing. Some from underground roots far from the original plant. That whole bed had been mulched about a foot deep in wood chips and composted leaves, so I suppose that saved the spark of life. I'd have to get out my index to name the bananas that I have, but they are all flourishing and all remained in the ground in zone 8B with an uncharacteristically cold winter for us.

This winter I will do a few things different, like heaping leaf compost high on the stems and then covering the tops with the hay and straw, then adding the wire cover to hold it in place and allow some air. We have such wet winters in general that blankets weight down the plants. Loose tarps may be okay if I get them in place securely.

We do not have basements here. When I dug up some bananas from a friend's yard by the river, about a foot down we struck water. So those plants were growing within the groundwater table. The plants coming from that yard are the biggest most lush plants I have. But of course, our soil is very well composted and mulched with years of enrichment.

Here is that banana early in June:

and here it is late in June, after a month of mostly rainy days and hot weather.

This is a pygmy banana with spotted leaves. It has spread freely:

Thanks moccasinlanding. My problem is that these banannas are in huge pots on my deck. One is a red abysinnian. (spelled wrong I'm sure) Anyway, it's about 6ft tall, very thick trunk. I need to learn how to post photos! So since they're not in the ground, do I have to cut them down to get them inside?

Lori