New to bananas, help!
 

Help with bananas help with this website too...
I just moved into a yard with mature outdoor bananas not sure of type as I have never had them before.
Most of them have brown stalks with new leaves coming out, but they are taller than me and I need a ladder to trim top dead leaves off.
I don’t even really know where to start with these plants. I haven’t figured out this forum yet either... I tried to upload some photos but I’m not sure if I did or not.

Re: New to bananas, help!
 

Re: New to bananas, help!
 

Welcome to the Bunch. ... Where are you located?


You could just whack the banana plants off at 4 ft. New leaves will come out from there. I did my plants a few weeks ago to remove the winter dead leaves.


There are no pic in your gallery.

Re: New to bananas, help!
 

Welcome to the Jungle,,,:woohoonaner:

Have fun Here :08:

Re: New to bananas, help!
 

Thank you! I whacked them at 4’ and they are looking good, doing their thing!! Thanks for the replies!!

Re: New to bananas, help!
 

Doesn't that set them back?

Re: New to bananas, help!
 

NO it doesn't. The new leaves grow from the bottom to the top. By whacking off the pstem we've shortened the plant some and the new leaf opens to the sunlight sooner & shorter height. This helps to keep the plant short as possible to reduce leaning plants or broken pstems when producing fruit. ... On younger & shorter plants, feel from the top down until the pstem is firm (not mushy) and whack there to remove the mushy frozen upper part. ... BUT!!! watch for any plant that might be ready to bloom if you cut the bloom off before it pushes out the pstem will die. I have 2 plants & pictures posted that show this. I didn't cut those. http://www.bananas.org/f2/update-202...hes-50279.html



The commercial banana growers trim the lower leaves (as much as 1/2) from the plants to improve air circulation in the mats/fields. So whacking the pstem off to remove the dead leaves & upper frozen pstem in our grow zones is not much difference.