bencelest

I am in zone 9 and I never cut the leaves of my bananas simply because I don't know that you should cut the leaves.I just follow my intuition. The way I do it I just put all my potted bananas in my open patio and enclosed it with clear plastics to protect my plants from harsh winds. I have other plants too like citrus and I also put them inside the enclosed patio together with the bananas and I put Christmas lights around each plant.
Regarding my watering, I just simply check the soil once in a while and when I see that the first 1 inch of top soil dry, I water them with warm water sparingly.
In regards with my planted bananas in the ground, I will follow the advice of the nice people here.
Here's one that someone posted in another forum a while back:

"I had my last winter citrus last year- they lived just fine. You should definitely check before you water, wet feet will be more detrimental than just about anything- its amazing how much longer they take to dry out indoors!

Mine didn't grow much during winter, but stayed mostly green. I get several hours of sun, and would put on a small fluorescent table light on for about 3-4 more hours. They get rotated around the light every few days. "

I think this idea can be applied to bananas as well.

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Banana Nut