California Gold Banana in Portland Oregon
 

It's almost spring here in Portland and I just checked my California Gold banana under the frost cloth wrap I made. After cutting away a little of the rotted portion I saw the green center, which means it is alive and doing fine. I wrapped the stem in frost cloth, mulched over almost the entire thing with soil and leaves and during snow events I put a black plastic bag over the top of it all. We have had several snow events here. That means 2 in or less on the ground. It's usually less. So it can, along with Basjoo, be grown here and weather wise we are pretty much over the hump.

Re: California Gold Banana in Portland Oregon
 

ok back i can type again so sorry i broke my shoulder and shattered muscle .

Re: California Gold Banana in Portland Oregon
 

My California Gold banana probably died. I was gone for over a month and my mom was taking care of it. It is in a pot now and since it was past the frost date something else must have happened. Maybe too much water or sun. Stem was mushy and the corm is brown. Scraped it off and am now going to let it hang out it in the pot to see if it regrows. Basjoo is still alive and happy in the ground.

Re: California Gold Banana in Portland Oregon
 

Bummer, I hope it recovers for you. Surviving a winter with snow is a difficult task for any banana!

Bill

Re: California Gold Banana in Portland Oregon
 

Thanks. The weird thing is it survived the winter fine. It was green on the inside of the pseudo stem about a month ago and it hasn’t been freezing since then.

Re: California Gold Banana in Portland Oregon
 

I would assume it got over watered while you were gone. Too much water = rot! Especially when it isn't hot.

Bill

Re: California Gold Banana in Portland Oregon
 

I've done some past research (mostly shifting through past threads of other people's accounts), and from what I gathered I can tell you that California Gold is going to be very borderline, and most probably isn't going to survive in Portland, Oregon.
(even if wrapped in insulation and mulched)

California Gold is more a zone 9 banana. Going into zone 8 in the Pacific Northwest is very very iffy.


I personally do believe it is theoretically possible to have an edible [truly edible and seedless, I mean] banana cultivar be able to survive outside in Portland, but so far such a banana cultivar has not really yet been bred or developed.

Re: California Gold Banana in Portland Oregon
 

Yeah. It was really close though and I will try again for sure.

Re: California Gold Banana in Portland Oregon
 

im zone 9a in florence oregon and mine are doing great i just got 5 new bananas , Portlandorbananas plant in pot bring inside if you can. i have gold finger cali gold nimwa , lacatan , ice cream gran nan and a few more . all doing great. i just put in green house in winter for the first 2-3 yrs and the Root ball gets used to the weather here

Re: California Gold Banana in Portland Oregon
 

It's called the "banana belt" of Oregon for a reason. I've heard accounts of Meyer lemon trees surviving outside along that sliver of coast.

Just to clarify, you're saying your California Gold survived the Winter outside, correct?

Did it die to the ground? Just the leaves die? Was the pseudostem still intact?
I'm assuming you didn't insulate or cover it?

Re: California Gold Banana in Portland Oregon
 

I have heard of Oregon’s banana belt. It’s pretty cool that there is a microclimate in Oregon where some tropical and subtropical plants can grow in the ground. I think when I try California Gold again I am going to bring it indoors during the winter for the first year or two to let it get a bigger psudostem before planting in the ground.

Re: California Gold Banana in Portland Oregon
 

SOCAL2Warm you mean from me ? LOL Lets see Citrus coffee and UM mangos now OH dragon fruit doing good too.


I dont do anything to it i just roll it into green house . and let it do what ever over winter both my gold doing good .

im searching for a lady finger or the tiny bananas not the plants I think its thousand fingers or something ?

Re: California Gold Banana in Portland Oregon
 

I’ve been growing a lot of tropical plants here in Portland. Coffee, dragon fruit, chocolate, cinnamon, vanilla and others. My coffee tree has produced beans but I’m still waiting on the dragon fruit, chocolate, vanilla and cinnamon. I just keep them inside during the winter. Also been growing a lemon tree that has produced a few lemons.