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View Full Version : We all have a story about how we got started, I'd love to hear yours!


revensen
06-10-2009, 03:44 PM
How did you get started?
The details of my life are quite inconsequential... very well, where do I begin? (Dr. Evil line, sorry, I had to do it.):ha:

In 2006 my wife and I were living in Melbourne, Florida and it was great! I loved the weather but we lived in an apartment. I was still living banana free but I was introduced to subtropical plants and weather.

In 2007, my job brought us to Cedar Rapids, IA. We bought a house and the back yard was a basically a clean canvas. Not a single tree, only grass. I was excited about updating the concrete patio that was already in place but my wife pushed for the deck. We built a deck and put up two privacy fences. Spring brought the excitement of starting the landscaping. I made the decision that if I can't live in Florida right now, I will try to bring the subtropical feel to Iowa! I've planted lots of Yucca, Elephant Ear, Cannas, ornamental grasses and Mexican Sunflowers. I needed to find something that would really nail down the tropical feel and my last purchase is what got me hooked, an Ensete Maurelii. At the time I didn't realize what had happened or what would soon follow. I thought one was enough. At this time I also was introduced to bananas.org..

After planting the Maurelii I soon noticed other areas in my yard that would be perfect locations for some Musa Basjoo's. Soon after the Basjoo's I come across some Musa Sikkimensis seeds for sale. The story is now to the present and tonight I will prep an area for a Basjoo I bought from Sandy.

Why?
I think of it as a healthy addiction. I look forward to seeing how the bananas are doing after work, I'll be honest, I check them in the morning too. The plants have an amazing ability to change almost daily and in my head it's a race against time as summers are short in Iowa. I love the fact that in this hobby you can ever say, "I'm finished with my yard, everything is in place." There's always a bed to weed, something to water or that next rare banana that germinated on the International Space Station. Although no such banana exists, it sure feels that way sometimes.

Goals or Projects for this year/summer?
I want to make it through the summer without killing any banana plants. I also want to learn more and become more knowledgable with banana care. At this time I don't think I'll be purchasing any more bananas, but we all know that's not true.:waving:

ewitte
06-10-2009, 04:07 PM
I'm a survivalist trying to figure out how to live without relying on others. I experiment with all kinds of edible plants. Those are the only types of plants I will plant. ETA about 5 years before having over 10 acres and hopefully earth sheltered home. I'm thinking of the main living area having a good amount of light coming in so there can be food growing inside the house all year long as well. Also ~3000sf greenhouse.

Bannanas spread like weeds for me. They are very easy to multiply.

sandy0225
06-10-2009, 05:36 PM
I saw some bananas on my honeymoon in cozumel. I liked them. I'd seen bananas when I lived in Gulfport, but I had little kids them and didn't think much about them at that time.
We went to vacation in Gulf Shores Al and I bought a little one for $7 and carried it home.
That started this whole mess!

microfarmer
06-10-2009, 10:55 PM
I have to say it was my wife's idea to get a banana. She was searching the internet one night, and suggested we get one. She picked a dwarf red (and I chose companions of Ice Cream, Goldfinger, dwarf Orinoco, and Zebrina:ha:). I searched for ways to care for them, and found this excellent forum!

Thanks Jarred!!

The dwarf red and Zebrina died that winter, but the other three are still going strong. I just kept buying and trading for more, 'til last count 20 different kinds.

I have to credit my wife's mother for kick starting my farmer gene. My wife and I moved into her mom's condo shortly after we first met, and then something wonderful happened. All her mom's perennials started coming to life that spring. I started caring for them and before I knew it, I was a regular gardener. After we moved to our own place, I planted hundereds of plants, trees, bulbs and seeds.

Farmer gene fully active!

The Hollyberry Lady
06-10-2009, 11:11 PM
In my case, I have Lorax to blame!!!

: O

I am in the process of germinating my very first musa dasycarpa seeds. This will be my first experience with growing a banana plant, but so glad I have joined the insanity!!! All the pictures have me drooling, and I can't wait to get a sprout.

:goteam::goteam::goteam::goteam::goteam::goteam::goteam:

Thanks for all the help on this forum, in getting me started. Tog and Lorax - you two are great. :waving:

: )

Bananaman88
06-11-2009, 06:33 AM
[QUOTE=revensen;79430]How did you get started?
The details of my life are quite inconsequential... very well, where do I begin? (Dr. Evil line, sorry, I had to do it.):ha:

I hope there was no ritualistic shaving involved! (Another tidbit for those of you who have seen Austin Powers.) :ha:

Tog Tan
06-11-2009, 03:24 PM
I come from a place where there are 'naners everywhere.... I use to hate the messy sight of them when they clump like crazy. I saw a pix of the Ensete superbum aka Bird Nest Banana and fell in love with it. Went on the net and ended up being addicted here!

After I got my Ensete superbum germinated, I did more research and became aware of how lucky I am to have 'naners all round me! Now I have a project called Ladang Musaceae which is dedicated to the preservation of the heirloom cultivars of Malaysia. It also houses as many of the 'naner species I can get my greasy paws on.....:ha::ha::ha:

'Nuff said!!!

Dalmatiansoap
06-11-2009, 04:04 PM
Well
whan I was like 12 years old I started with smoking my first cigarets, than after..... OH MY GOD, WRONG STORY, UPS...
Nevermind Im just slightly addicted banana grower:waving:
:woohoonaner:

Bob
06-11-2009, 04:58 PM
I think it started for me about 15 or so years ago when during the mid -winter , cabin fever, longing for sunshine state of mind I was busy browsing the endless seed catologs and actually had winters off to do whatever(wish I did now). I bought 2 plants labeled "musa banana" from a cheap-o nursery , I believe they were zebrinas' and kept them for 5 years till I moved in to this house and immediatley got my first basjoos. At this point I was getting tired of waiting for the fruits that never came and they ended up as anuals in the garden. Wish I knew what I do now. The bases were ridiculously swollen and I bet with a little more time and care would have flowered. Live and learn.

saltydad
06-11-2009, 05:39 PM
I had manaaged a nursery/garden center in NY, then had to move down to Maryland to help take care of my Mom.I first got in to growing plants beyond my zone in 2005 when I planted a needle palm from Plant Delights and it did well, survived the winter as dieback but put up a new spear, then my lawn service mowed it! Never recovered. In 2007 I started over with a needle palm, a T. fortunei, a sabal McCurtain, and a musa basjoo. The palms did OK, but VERY slow growing. The musa is still going great guns. I then discovered a local "zone benders" group called DCTropics. and with a bunch of like minded gardeners I went crazy. I discovered this site, and my banana psychopathy has increased tenfold.

:nanadrink:

conejov
06-11-2009, 05:45 PM
One time in Band camp.....Oh, sorry wrong group.

It all started for me about 15 years also. My parents had a huge mat of nanners which fruited everyyear. back then I never really paid any attention.. when I finally moved out and out of state I saw one in a big box store and bought it.... it gave a little piece of home.... so I have been addicted since. I never knew there were so many types of nanners. I plan to try to collect all edibles that I can grow here in houston.

Patty in Wisc
06-11-2009, 06:44 PM
A member on a citrus forum posted pics of his Ice Cream banana ready to flower in his front yard in SC. I decided I wanted one esp when I read they are about the best tasting. He said he would give me a pup but time went on so I think it was him who sent me a link to IC for sale on Ebay. I bought 2 - 2inch tc IC's. That was in June '06. He also told me I'd never get it to fruit here. It's now the big one I'm hoping will flower this year.
Through trading, I also got a dbl Mahoi & Truly Tiny that summer. Then, Joe Real posted the link for this forum on the citrus forum & I joined (06). Didn't post much the first year, but the more I read, I became addicted and learned a lot. I now added tc's Siam Ruby, Raja Puri, & the Misi Luki pup I won from Mitchel to my small collection. I am still learning :)

Scuba_Dave
06-11-2009, 09:30 PM
I found this site by accident looking for plants
Then after signing up & looking more I realized it was not just a funny name for a web-site. So now I have 4 banana plants - 2 are dwarfs. I had very little gardens, trees, perennials, flowers or bushes anywhere - now they are all over

Why? I grow or try to grow everything. I have a 1/2 acre & over 100 trees planted. Including Dawn Redwood & Sequioa (yes the ones that grow 300' tall). I planted around 6,000 fall bulbs. I love the tropics & would like to transform my pool area into a tropical resort for the summer months

Goals - just grow some bananas. Make my pool area look nice for my Staycations

Tog Tan
06-12-2009, 12:51 AM
This post is running great....
All we need is a couple more boys and girls to join in and with the staccated speech, body trembles, cold sweat and then we can have the Hello xxx, Welcome to the group xxx and finally a Group Hug....
:ha::ha::ha::ha::ha::ha::ha:

Dalmatiansoap
06-12-2009, 02:28 AM
Hohoho
that would be some hug!!!
:woohoonaner:

lorax
06-12-2009, 05:31 AM
How?
I moved from frigid northern Canada to tropical Southern Ecuador. The place I was living at had 200 banana plants, mostly Cavendishes and Giant Plantains, on it, and I had to learn really fast or risk killing them.

Why?
I really really really didn't want to tell my friend, whose house it was, that I'd killed all his bananas and that I had to plant new ones... Then, once I got the idea of plantation maintenance, it just got more and more interesting.

Goals/Projects
Find pups for all of the Gros Michel variants grown here - from the big, Panama-resistant plantain crosses to the original strains. I also aim to find pups for the Kichua traditional Chirsqui-huaqui plantains, which intrigue me.

Tog Tan
06-12-2009, 08:07 AM
There you go again Beth...sounding dead serious like a school teacher! Good? Now you feel better after letting it out?

Okay boys and girls say Thank You Lorax...and Group Hugggg.....:ha:

lorax
06-12-2009, 11:38 AM
http://tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:wbd26w9dtQIMAM:http://justgiving.typepad.com/justgivings_blog/images/fish.jpg

I can't be unserious all the time.

Bananaman88
06-12-2009, 12:09 PM
OK, so I got started one night when my Mom and Dad were in their bedroom- what?? Oh, not that far back! OK, I see, just how we got started with the plant craze. Sorry about that.

Well, I grew up on a farm in KY (yes, let the jokes commence). We had hogs, cattle, sheep, etc,. and all sorts of crops including a huge veggie garden. My Mom and one of my aunts always grew flowers and as I got older I starting taking an interest. I remember sprouting acorns from the oaks in our yard. In high school I took a landscape design course and a greenhouse production course. I had intended to go into Wildlife Biology to study whitetail deer, as I really love the outdoors, hunting, and fishing. However, I decided to study horticulture instead.

When my wife and I moved to St. Louis, I got hired at the Missouri Botanical Garden and worked there from 1998-2003 before we moved to TX. We grew some bananas out in our flower beds there one year and that's when all the madness started. Seems to get worse as time goes by!

john_ny
06-12-2009, 03:42 PM
I had an aquarium fish import business, and we sold a few plants also. I traveled a lot, and would bring fish and plants back from all over. My wife is a hospital operating room supervisor. Many years ago, her chief of surgery, and his wife, invited us to come with them to a vacation home that they had, in St. Lucia. A close friend of theirs, down there, had built several of the hotels on the island. He got me permission to take cuttings from the hotel plantings. I also made several trecks out into the jungle, and collected many things from the wild. There were bananas everwhere. This was when the island was still British - before they became independent, so almost everything they used came from the U. K. ( a bottle of catsup, in a restaurant, said on it, "H. J. Heinz & Co., Ltd., London) Conversly, almost everything they produced was shipped to the U. K. When I asked about the bananas, it was arranged for me to get a few corms to bring back. I was also told that they were Gros Michelle, not what we were getting in the U. S. because, it was explained, the Britis, "preferred a slightly smaller banana than Americans."
The bananas were potted, and brought to my store, for sale. This is when I learned about sunburn and gradual aclimatization. Some charity was holding a flea market, in a shopping center parking lot. It was in full sun, with no protection, I took some of my plants there and, within a matter of hours, the bananas had turned completely white, from sunburn.
We had been down to the island, on several subsequent visits, and I brought more back each time. When we moved into this house, we had a pair of glass patio doors, in a finished basement. I put a couple of potted naners next to the doors and, pretty soon, they were pushing the tiles out of the suspended ceiling. Some time after that, I started dealing with Agri-Starts and have, since, brought up many more varieties, along with countless other plants.

Bob
06-12-2009, 08:07 PM
http://tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:wbd26w9dtQIMAM:http://justgiving.typepad.com/justgivings_blog/images/fish.jpg

I can't be unserious all the time.

Quit posting this ..... everyone's going to think it's me.......and it's not funny at all!!!!!!!

lorax
06-12-2009, 08:21 PM
It could be you.... if you gained about 50 lbs and grew a beard....

Bob
06-12-2009, 08:23 PM
It could be you.... if you gained about 50 lbs and grew a beard....

Don't speak to me!!!

lorax
06-12-2009, 08:28 PM
Aww. Now what do I have to do to make that up to you? It's not as bad as some of the things I've said about you, you know...

The Hollyberry Lady
06-13-2009, 12:25 AM
http://i375.photobucket.com/albums/oo193/hollyberrylady08/112475-1.jpg

Lorax and Bob - you two are hilarious!

: )

Bob
06-13-2009, 05:49 AM
Aww. Now what do I have to do to make that up to you? It's not as bad as some of the things I've said about you, you know...

OK now I've slept on it and it's not even close to some of the pointed words of wit that seem to flow effortlessly from your fingertips...

LilRaverBoi
06-14-2009, 03:21 PM
Alright...just to warn you...this will probably end up being a novel. I'm incapable of writing small passages, especially when telling stories!

I grew up on a farm outside a small town in Iowa (Mount Vernon for you Iowans out there!). My dad grew corn and soybeans and we always had a ridiculously huge garden (200+ tomato plants, 15 10' rows of green beans, 15 zucchini plants, etc etc etc for a family of five....did I mention ridiculous?). Anywho...I was always big on plants and gardening. I got a job around the age of 12 working over the summers for a friend of the family at her farm. She was a biology professor at Cornell College and used her time off during the summer to grow fresh vegetables (mostly organic at the time but I think she may be certified organic now) for people in the area. She had several acres of garden and grew just about every type of vegetable I could think of (and some I could not). One summer, something happened to the banana that was in the Cornell greenhouse....it 'died'...not sure exactly what the full story is. But she took the roots to her farm, cut it in pieces and threw it in the compost pile. Low and behold, they grew into about 7 banana plants. When fall came, she dug some of them up to take back to the greenhouse and asked me if I wanted a couple, knowing I loved plants (and had been ogling them all summer!). Naturally I agreed. I kept my banana plants for years. They stayed in my room over the winter and were planted in the garden during the summer. They had to be cut off at the base several times cause they readily outgrew my 7.5 ceilings inside. No clue what kind they were...they were totally green, full sized, and had pups with no leaves (just a big cone about the size of a golf ball) that would grow into a new plant once I cut the parent plant off.

When I went off to college, I didn't want to risk my mom killing them, so I sent them back to the greenhouse at Cornell. One winter, after a big ice storm, the entire city lost power for about a week and they froze. But apparently one of them did produce bananas before that happened. Since then, I had always wanted to get more, but never had a good place to grow them (living in small, shared dorm rooms with east windows). After college, I got accepted into Optometry school at UMSL in St. Louis. My room here is pretty big and has south-facing windows. I decided it was time to get back into growing bananas. I bought two (SDC and an Ice Cream) and got back started again. Two turned into three when I bought a Ensete Maurelii online, and that turned into 5 after I found a Siam Ruby at a nursery and an Ensete Superbum online. At this point, they are outside on a patio area, but since they will have to come indoors when winter nears, I think I need to control my addiction....but gosh, I still want more!

Yeah, sorry for the novel, but I DID warn you!

The Hollyberry Lady
06-14-2009, 03:46 PM
I didn't mind how long your post was, because it was very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

: )

kaczercat
06-14-2009, 03:47 PM
It was back in 2006 or 2007 i had heard of Banana plants and i knew they were cold hardy where i was so- Musa basjoo) i was out one day with my mother. we were on our way to a festival. We passed a flower shop with hundreds of tropical s outside. I yelled stopp!!!!!! and ran over to then.There in the back was a somewhat tall banana, only one . So I said Mom Mom can i get it? it was only ($20) The plant was close to 5'2 and no pups . I ended up getting it and that winter Dec (i got it in Sept) back when i had no idea how to care for them over watered it and Rotted:( The following summer i was at Dominion now called Metro and i was walking in and saw cold hardy banana sign and it started all over again. And to this day im still collecting banana plants . Oh what fun . :D And when I'm a legal age I'm a commin down there to the sunshine state to live. Im so sick of these cold long winters. living there would give me a hole year for the growing season which is exactly what i would like. :)

CValentine
06-14-2009, 04:23 PM
((Sigh)) Where to begin...

It was a dark and stormy night... :D

I am an avid Home-schooling Mother of 5 children, aged 20(graduated, now college), 14(8th grade), 9(5th grade), 5(1st grade) & 3years old(PS).
My husband & I seek to educate in a highly interactive, hands on applicable based atmosphere.
These kids want to do everything, LOL! We just put in a NP205 into our old Ford, a double stick, new front & rear driveshafts...everyone got in on a piece of that!

In our never-ending quest to find new & interesting projects to teach the children, we decided to put in a garden, with something besides your standard plants.
I have always had an annual & perennial bed & roses...my husband has had his Salsa Garden, and general vege's...we needed something more exciting!!

So there we are...perusing the internet for exotic stuff to grow...and 'Voila!'...BANANAS!!!

The kids about lost their minds... The littlest loved the musa dasycarpa, she loves PINK!! :) (We aren't growing any currently & will look towards that in the future.)
We started researching what bananas would fit in & not overwhelm our little 1/3 acre plot, we have a strange layout & had the pool to consider. We have next to no East or North yard, most of our free space on the West side & the front of the House faces South with crappy water lines buried lines that we have to watch out for in front yard.
So we decided on the Dwarf Orinoco's based on their attributes(and our limitations), capable of growing in Zone 7, 4-6 ft. tall, a fruiting banana(yummy) & capable of being grown containerized.

And so it began...a journey into the unknown...

So here we are!!! Learning from the information here, and LOVING the interactivity & friendliness of the people here on the Forum!!

Have a great week-end All!! Enjoying the thread!! :) ~Cheryl

lorax
06-14-2009, 05:09 PM
Alright, another homeschooler! I did 9-12 at home, and it was infinitely better than anything I got in the public schools....

Simply Bananas
06-14-2009, 08:24 PM
Here is my novella. Its a long winded and rambling yarn:

I live in Charleston which sits on a peninsula nestled between the Ashley and the Cooper rivers on two sides and Charleston Harbor on the third. The water seems to be able to moderate the temperatures some from the standard USDA zone map.

Being a relatively old city, the genteel residents have adorned their houses with ornate gardens and unusual plants from the days back when the city was settled. One of the plants that seemed to do well was the Banana.

Downtown Charleston has many secret fenced gardens and protected courtyards. The protection has allowed banana plants to do extremely well, often overwintering with very few leaves lost. When one has successful plants they are given away to friends and neighbors and this has happened for decades in Charleston. Needless to say, a stroll down any of the historical residential streets will have usually yield a few bananas plant sightings. As a biology major in college here in the early 80's, seeing large healthy banana plants fascinated me. I often caught Carolina anoles( a type of iguanid lizard able to change colors from brown to green and back again) around the banana plants to feed snakes in our labs(and my apartment).

While I excelled in field biology in college, I opted not to go to graduate school but found work on a flora and fauna rich barrier island known as Kiawah as a naturalist(not a naturist). I was eventually hired to protect a big time Hollywood movie crew from snakes as they shot scenes in serpent dense areas. One thing led to another and I jettisoned my paid naturalist career and was sucked into the better paying entertainment business for films television and commercials.

My jobs took me to tropical lands where my fascination with banana plants increased seeing them in Costa Rica, Mexico, New Orleans, Bahamas, and the Virgin Islands. In the meantime, I bought a house across the river from Charleston in 1992 on James Island. Low and behold there were two struggling banana plants on the shady west side of my new house. I moved them to the east side there they stayed.
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y274/porkpi/100_1113.jpg

I got married and my wife was interested in clumping bamboo for landscaping. I was put in charge of researching it. Somehow, my searches always led me to bananas plants. I saw how people in more colder areas than ours grew bananas and even had luck with fruit, something I never saw while looking at the hundreds of mats in Charleston.

One November, my wife and I ended up in Miami at Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens at the annual Ramble where they fund raise through a plant dispersal, antique sale and arts and craft show. My wife was an invited artist to the show, so I had the better part of 3 days to wander the grounds. In between fetching snacks from Tropical Chinese or deep fried garlicky artichoke hearts, I met Don from Going Bananas and got to see the different types of plants and fruits they had brought to sell.

The following May, I bought some Ele Ele, Basjoo, Ice Cream, Itinerans sp yunann(?) from eBay. I watered and fed them and my original mat of what turned out to be Orinocos. They went from this:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y274/porkpi/100_1115-1.jpg
to this:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y274/porkpi/100_1390.jpg
in one season. The following April, an Orinoco bloomed.

Banana plants were very entertaining and I decided that others might like this entertainment as well. I formed a small company called Simply Bananas to provide locals with an alternate to the either non fruiting types or non cold hardy types sold in local nurseries, or big box home improvement stores. I mostly sell the plants at the Charleston Farmer’s Market every Saturday from April until Labor day.
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y274/porkpi/banstoller.jpg
The Charleston Farmer’s Market was rated 5th best in the country by Travel and Leisure Magazine last year and we have a average attendance of about 3,000 people every Saturday. I’m lucky in that my booth is next to my wife’s so now we get to spend Saturday’s together. Occasionally I’ll place an ad on the Charleston Craigs list if my inventory swells. I don’t do mail order as my current job on the tv show “Army Wives” eats up my daytime hours that once used to be for fishing and postal errands.

I'm in my 4th year with Simply Bananas. While it won't pay all the bills, it does provide a nice vacation to Costa Rica every year as well as a justified tax write-off of a great hobby.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y274/porkpi/100_2727.jpg

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y274/porkpi/100_6216_1.jpg
The Simply Bananas Banana Plantation August 2008


FIN.

harveyc
06-14-2009, 11:59 PM
I forgot what started my initial interest in bananas until I dug up a photo of my son and some bananas taken in Madeira, Portugal in November 2004 (posted on another thread a month or two ago). My father's parents immigrated from Madeira about 90-100 years ago and we visited my father's cousin in Madeira and I fell in love with the island and often think I'd like to retire there. Seeing the bananas there in private gardens, etc. were more interesting to me than the bananas I'd seen many times during my times working or vacationing in Hawaii, probably because I could now imagine my grandparents and earlier generations growing them (a distant relative has given me a family tree back 10 generations back to the 16th century).

I have been an Internet junkie since around 1994 (CompuServe) and readily turned to the Internet in early 2005 to search for bananas to try growing. I ran into the web site for the California Rare Fruit Growers and then searched for local chapters. Since I was doing quite a bit of work in the Modesto area at the time, I checked out the San Joaquin Valley chapter and saw that a guy named Jeff Earl had some information about banana growing on the web site along with a TV video, etc. There wasn't any mention of his "California Gold" selection at the time but I wrote him for some suggestions and ended up buying some tissue culture plants on eBay from Wellspring, advertised as being Dwarf Orinoco, Ice Cream, and Rajapuri. As I found out last year, the Dwarf Orinoco are not dwarf nor Orinoco, but something from some mix-up somewhere. I kept these tiny plants in a pot for 2005 and planted them in the ground in the spring of 2006 and was then addicted by their rapid rate of growth. I'm a third generation farmer and we've always been fascinated by the fast growth rate of corn (claims that the corn is growing so fast you can hear it are common), but the bananas were even faster and the huge leaves impressed me a great deal.

I had been lurking around this forum for a bit in late 2006 or early 2007 but the realization in the spring of 2007 that many of my bananas had died down to the ground by an unusually cold spell in January (seven days of low 20s) got me to look on the Internet some more. By then I believe I had met Joe Real on the citrus forum but I had already been visiting here before I discovered he was growing bananas near me. I was quickly fascinated by all of the choices of varieties once I started visiting here regularly. I saw a few folks mentioning the hardiness of California Gold and when I searched about that I was surprised to find it was a banana named by Jeff Earl who had helped me out to begin with. I contacted Jeff and bought a pup from him in person in April 2007 and by the end of 2007 I had around 25-30 cultivars acquired from Joe Real, Jon (pitangadiego), and others. Unfortunately, several of these did not survive being potted up indoors in my heated/lit shop in the winter of 2007/2008 but 2008 did bring about my first bananas which fruited from plants I had started out from scratch with (a very large banana from Joe was transplanted to my place in June 2007 and flowered two weeks later, but I really couldn't take any credit for that).

I've added many other varieties to my collection in 2008 and again earlier this year (thanks, in part, to Richard's AgriStarts offering). I now have around 25 varieties again and expect some of these will die next winter. I don't plan to make a big effort to protect my banana plants like many of the members from colder climates (except that I'll baby a few plants like my Ae Ae) so I just hope to get down to maybe 10 or so varieties that perform consistently for me.

Back in 2007 I thought it was crazy that folks would pay over $100 for something like an Ae Ae or waste their time growing a non-fruiting (ornamental) banana and said that's something I wouldn't ever do. I've since gone against that many times, having paid $100 or more for a banana about seven or eight times (three have died). Still, the rewards of the successes (i.e., my latest Ae Ae leaf from my large plant unfurled today) has made it worth it. As long as the weather warms up to something close to normal before long, I expect several more plants to bloom for me this year.

It's been a fun ride and I hope it is a long one.

Cheers,

Harvey

LilRaverBoi
06-15-2009, 12:33 AM
Wow...great write-up and I loved all the pictures! I like this thread cause I feel like I know everyone better now!

Woah...harvey, ya wrote all that up while I was reading the one before! And now I'm feeling a lot better about how much I wrote! LOL. These are all great stories, though! Fun to read and learn about you all!

harveyc
06-15-2009, 12:38 AM
I know myself better now also! :ha:

I've only thought about bits and pieces of my own story and had to think about it for a couple of days before posting to this thread.

Lagniappe
06-15-2009, 12:45 AM
I haven't truly gotten started....yet

Tog Tan
06-15-2009, 02:21 AM
I haven't truly gotten started....yet
C'mon Pete, I know it's not easy, say it, say it........ now take a deep, deep breath and let the story out and we can have a huge group hug for you.

LilRaverBoi
06-15-2009, 05:14 AM
C'mon Pete, I know it's not easy, say it, say it........ now take a deep, deep breath and let the story out and we can have a huge group hug for you.
LMFAO....bananas anonymous!:nanadrink:

My name is Bryan and I'm addicted to bananas.....

lorax
06-15-2009, 08:57 AM
Hi, Bryan! We accept you as one of our own. A banana addiction is not life-threatening, and we promise to enable you at every opportunity.

:ha::ha::ha:

Bananaman88
06-15-2009, 09:33 AM
Great stories!

LilRaverBoi
06-15-2009, 12:21 PM
Hi, Bryan! We accept you as one of our own. A banana addiction is not life-threatening, and we promise to enable you at every opportunity.

:ha::ha::ha:

LOL...thanks! Though really, I don't require any enabling...just more space! My place looks like a jungle...I was gonna say 'all I need is a monkey' but I think I have that covered already! :ha:

And yeah, loving all the stories! It's very interesting to hear how different and similar everyone is here.

conejov
06-15-2009, 01:09 PM
Ha! That reminds me... My daughter told me the other day..."Im glad your still a member of the banana fan club" It cracked me up.

I cant help it if Bananas are like crack...

cowboyup4christ
06-16-2009, 04:39 PM
OK, neighbor was talking about someone growing pineapple in zone 8 so I said that I had saw some bananas that were also hardy to zone 8. one thing led to another so we order 4 dwarf orinocos just to try. well two other people heard about it and wanted me to order 4 for them, well I figured why not order a few extra so I order 8 now of the twelve nanners I have 5 well six including the one I won here from bigdog which was one big pup let me tell you. now the question is will I grow them or kill them. Stay tuned for updates same nanner time same nanner station.

:nanertank: figured since my nanners were close to Fort Bragg they needed a tank

Dalmatiansoap
05-01-2010, 03:21 AM
Come on guys!
Its time for Your story!
:nanadrink:

Abnshrek
05-01-2010, 06:52 AM
Well well well :^) Lets see I think I bought this place 5 years ago and it happened to have banana's that never got any. So one day (last year infact) I said I was sick of cutting down those non-producers & dug out the corm giving parts to friends, and my pigs. I started w/ 2 DC's and have a bunch of other's now. I definately hit a steep learning curve, and killed my share, but somehow have a flower in 10 months so life is good :^)

cherokee_greg
06-22-2010, 02:42 PM
For me it all started with a DC I found at Wal_Mart about a two years ago,it was a dollar on clearance I repotted it and lleft it outside all winter long it lived,I was shocked I Thought I could not grow bananas here. Any how I started searching the web about information on the banana plants. On Davesgarden.com I found somthing about a siam ruby I thought it was so cool I did a search and found one on braiansbotanicals website I ordered it and soon after I found the ORG ! And the rest is history. I have not even been here a year. I said im not going to freak out on banana plants like all these people here well I lied ! LOL I may have it bad.
Banana species and cultivars grown?:
Im growing
1 Goldfinger
1 Siam Ruby
3 Ensete Maurellii
5 Dwarf Cavendish
2 Musa Ice Cream (Blue Java)
2 Thai Black
4 Musa Basjoo
1 Misi Luki of Samoa
1 Raji Puri
1 Musella Lasiocarpa
4 unknowns
1 Ornico
1 Kru
1 Musa Saba
3 Musa Bordelon
1 Musa Grand Nain
1 Musa Truly Tiny
1 Musa Dwarf Brazilian
1 Musa Carolina King
2 Musa Thomsonii
2 Musa Balbisiana
1 Musa Double (Mahoi)
1 Viente Cohol
2 Musa Dwarf Namwah
1 Musa California Gold
1 Musa Misi Luki
2 Musa Dwarf Orinoco
1 Musa Texas Star
1 Musa Manzano

I been taking out grass in my yard to make room for more, I love growing banana plants. Im happy I found the ORG.
Greg

cowboyup4christ
06-23-2010, 07:51 PM
update to my story the saga continues so it been awhile now 12 has grow to 22 plants 10 different varieties, and am thinking of planting 100 musa Veultina seeds I bough, join a naner addict support group, no help just getting more naners from fellow addicts. well now that the back yard is filling up I at lest hope I get a bloom off one of my 7+ ft dw Orinocos this year. stay tuned for more of the Carolina Naner addict saga, same naner time same naner channel

cheson74
06-24-2010, 07:32 AM
In 2004, I was stationed in Hawaii. There were tropical plants growing everywhere year round. In 2006, I was deployed to a remote island in the Philippines. The Philippino people there basically ate what they grew and caught out of the ocean. Banana plants were all over the place.

After talking to one of the local farmers, he told me the banana plantations were one of their main sources of income on the island. That and coconuts. They harvest the fruit and sell it at the market on one of the bigger islands. They use the leaves for cooking and make shift plates, table cloth, etc. They eat the flower in stews, soups or just chopped up. Obviously, they ate the fruit too.

In 2009, I moved to South Jersey and stopped by a local nursery. I noticed they had banana plants for sale and asked the owner how well they do in Jersey. He said it was near the end of the season (October) so he gave me 2 DC's for free! That started the whole mess.

I took them inside for the winter and they survived! During the winter, I was researching bananas and found this site. Now I have bananas all over the place. It drives my wife crazy.

guerich
06-24-2010, 06:45 PM
A coworker's father was selling his place, and was giving away plants He didn't have room for. Upon seeing the exotic tropical paradise that He had created in His Northern Kentucky estate I was hooked.:drum: