Mike- Last year I managed to get fruit from 8 or 9 of the 15 or so (desert bananas) I had planted in the ground. I have been able to get fruit from almost all of the ornamentals except a few varieties that I just got a few weeks ago. (I am very interested in cross-pollinating the ornamentals in an attempt to develop new varieties and in the last few weeks have harvested several hundred seeds (no kidding) from the crosses I made earlier in the spring.)
I have added the majority of the desert plants to my list since last fall. I have about 30 varieties in the ground at my house (with the rest at another location) with hopes of fruiting them this year. (We'll see how it goes. I'm still working out the details of what works best to get them to fruit in our climate.) Most of my plants are grown in one of my greenhouses during the winter and planted in the ground in mid-April. If they bloom by mid-September I can get the fruit to ripen by trimming a few of the hands and bagging the fruit. This is a pic of a Goldfinger bunch from last fall that started blooming on September 20. The bunch weighed ~55 lbs when I cut it in early December.
http://hometown.aol.com/rhwaww/image...ingerfruit.jpg
I am not retired but have a very understanding wife (and neighbors too). I am a univeristy professor and the bananas are also a part of several of the research projects I am working on. I don't have the kind of sucess people in south FL do but I don't think I do bad for growing bananas in south GA.