We had a super harsh winter last year. When the coldest moved in, I cleaned out my closet of old clothes and a few blankets.
Your bananas will take about 5-7 months to ripen on the vine. No way to speed that up....well....you can dodge winters. So with that, remember the 'plant' is underground and the leaves are what we admire. It will be important to keep the ground warm. Dry also helps.
Last year I put a bunch of clothes around my plant, wrapped in a blanket, then put as much soil and mulch onto the trunk of the plant. Just keep the cold off your plant. Then another blanket or something on the ground to keep the cold off your plant/corm/roots.
If you look in last years posts, you will see a bunch of posts with pictures of how people protected their leaves. Frost will kill the leaves. I wrapped painters plastic around the trunk and picked the leaves up, kinda like when they first come out...straight up. Inside with the wrapped plant/leaves was a piece of PVC pipe...it's cheap at Home Depot. This also helped support all the clothing I put on top.
Ok, that's cold weather stuff....but protect the leaves from FROST....very important.
And there will not be any need to water for a while. When temps drop below mid-50's, the plant starts to shut down.
Here's a link to our Dwarf Cavendishs. Pix are 1 month old. Scroll down and you'll see them.
Good Luck TGirl
Bananas