Originally Posted by Bananaman88

Hey, welcome to the org! I'm just south of dowtown Houston by about 30 minutes. I grow a number of different bananas. I've had the most luck with 'Orinoco' and I've also had 'Dwarf Cavendish' to fruit, though not early enough to get mature fruit. It's only a matter of time, though. Just need it to flower a bit earlier.

We are in what I consider to be a "marginal" area for bananas here in Houston. I say that because the growing season is just a tad too short to reliably get fruit each year. I have been growing bananas here for about 6 years now and each year my bananas lose all of their leaves but the pseudostems generally survive the winter here OK, unless it's one of the less hardy cultivars such as 'Dw. Cavendish', 'Dw. Red', 'Super Dwarf Cavendish' etc.

Feel free to PM me and we can talk bananas all you want. I did a presentation on growing bananas here back in August at Mercer Arboretum, I don't suppose you caught that but I may be able to send you some of my notes from it if you want to PM me your e-mail address. There are several growers on the board here from the Houston area. I'm sure they'll be happy to share their experiences with you. In the mean-time you can also check out my profile for a list of cultivars and species I am growing or have grown in the past. I was doing a blog on growing bananas on the HoustonGrows website but it was just taken down due to inactivity. I just haven't had time to blog recently but I hope to start up again soon. Cheers!