mary robin

Hello banana growers!

I am in Montgomery AL zone 8 and I grow them for ornamental reasons. We have short warm spells throughout the winter and especially just now. My bananas stay in the ground and come back up once it starts to warm up. The only trouble is, the rhizome starts to send a shoot up from an old stump, the weather cools off again and the shoot turns brown at the tip. It's been quite warm (high 70's, low 80's) this past week and I'm not seeing as many little green shoots as I would have expected. My question to you all is: should I take a hack saw to the stumps which have put up the few new shoots I have but that are brown on the end and then hope the weather won't damage shoots when they come back up?

thx a bunch.

bepah

Before you do anything, assess what you are trying to accomplish. If plant health is paramount, I would not chop any green portion off, but wait for better weather and trim the brown.

If your aim is only ornamental, chopping them down will only leave you with the base of the plant to look at. My recommendation for that would be to replace the plant with one that is not brown.

Note that I do not think that cutting plants is wise either way. When we grow plants that 'make' it in areas where they are not native, we must expect that they will not be perfect some months during the year. Many ornamental gardeners throw out tropicals over the winter, For example, in my area, hibiscus are grown primarily as annuals, even though many types will survive, but look like hell.

My Ice Creams also look pretty poor right now, but I will not cut of the dead leaves until such time as the minimum temps are over 50 degrees.I have some pretty poor looking leaves that emerged on the first warming, but cutting them down because they are looking poor will set back the growth quite a bit as the p-stems are quite healty.

Good luck with whatever you decision is.

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John Case
Rookie Gardener, Veteran Drinker

austinl01

Welcome to the best banana site in the world!

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Austin
Arkansas River Valley

Average January Low: 31°F, Average August High: 92°F
Extreme Winter Lows: 5-15°F, Extreme Summer Highs: 100-112°F, Annual Precipitation: 52 inches

mary robin

Thank you so much. Everything you said makes perfect sense, if I just thought about it intuitively. I'm pasting your response into my garden file.

Caloosamusa

Welcome to the organization Mary Robin!

I don't have any experience growing bananas as far North as zone 8. I would suggest using mulch, alot, to protect the new shoots till the danger of freeze has past. That should not be too much longer. Then just spread and thin out the mulch a little.

Please get the opinions of others on this site as to the wisdom of that. They are full of many cold weather tricks that I am probably unaware of.

Best wishes