Hello everyone,
I thought I would share my success story with everyone in the northern zones of banana growing. This is my 3rd season growing bananas in Massachusettes with nice growth every year. My first year I grew a nice 12 footer that I was amazed with. It didn't make the winter because of lack of protection from what the nusery that sold it to me said to do. Even though I thought differently, rule 1 go with your intuition.
My second year I bought what I thought was a basjoo on ebay which grew very well but turned out to be a Raja puri I believe. Good thing I chickened out at the last minute and dug it up. I got five off springs this from the mother which died over the winter 6 foot trunk most likely ready to flower before I dug it up.
This Year I was done messing around I had already gone to Florida to pick up a load of palms and other tropicals in early March. With no luck finding any Basjoos then I was on a mission to find some in my return trip in late May. With some luck I managed to find some ahead of time through a lowes outside of Savannah which I stopped at on my return from bringing my grandmother back from Florida. Well I managed to pack in 9 5 gal. basjoos, one 7 gal I think Plantain, and a nice red maurellii for very cheap money in her grand am
. When I got back I decided to put heat cabels under them since the weather was so cold this spring. Well it worked with flying colors! This is my first post with pictures and I hope it helps people next year! I'm a huge palm guy but I love bananas just as much! First picture is June 10th! I really did make the soil super rich even though it was nice to begin with. I adding manure, compost, and green sand before I planted them. Seemed to work nicely!
September 16th nine mother plants with some seven foot babies now. A few long shot pictures.
An inside picture of one of the trunks.
Width and height of one of the big leaves I could get too.
And last but not least the total height with no wind blowing the leaf up. I would say give the heat cables a try in any climate. This was a very cool summer here and I'll have 16' off one year plans in Ma. GDD 3400 not bad growth, my trachy gained height from 5 feet to 7 and a half this year 30 plus fronds.
Hope I helped people gain so serious growth next year!
Bill