troutarm

My Mekong Giant Bananas that I purchased from Plant Delight Nursery last year are still not growing!! I have them planted in the same area as my Musa Basjoo which are growing like weeds but the Mekong Giants still are only about a foot tall. They look very healthy but they just won't grow. I think I am going to dig them up and pot them inside over winter to see if I can get some growth out of them and replant them in another area next spring. I was told that the tissue cultured plants don't start as quick but this is the second season and still nothing.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Illia

How warm are your summers, how much are you giving them fertilizer/compost, how much water are they getting?

troutarm

I am in zone 7b. This summer it has been in the upper 80s and 90s and really humid. The soil they are planted in is dark, rich soil in the backyard. I have put compost on all of my banana plants. The Musa Basjoo are already about 18 feet tall and they are in the same area as the Mekong Giants. They get about 4 hours of direct sun a day and we have had a wet summer this year. Last year we didn't have nearly as much rain and they still didn't grow.

blownz281

If it makes you feel any better I bought a Helen's Hybrid off them last year and it has not grown well at all. I bought a Mekong Giant off them the other day so will see how that does. There plants are all skinny and small,so that's part of the issue. All my other plants in my sig grow like crazy and some have thrown fruit.

sman87

How acidic is your soil? I was having slow growth as well, you might want to add a little bit of powdered lawn lime into your next watering. Sometimes they need a little extra calcium found in the lime to metabolize nutrients quicker for some faster growth. I found out they are a little more "temperamental" to grow than the basjoos. My Mekong Giants were Tc's I bought the last week of April they were maybe 4in tall then. Once they get out of that juvenile stage they get huge. As of today they are just about 6 feet tall! the stems are definitely "thinner" than the Basjoos, but they look perfectly proportional the overall size of the plant in terms of dimensions. Hopefully yours wake up and start growing too, good luck

RobG7aChattTN

I've had a few different Musas that seemed to never take off while nearby Musas take off and grow out of bounds. The one's that struggled have been Musa thompsoni, 'Thai Black', and surprisingly Musa velutina. In my case I think it just might be competition from nearby plants. The 'Thai Black' has started to grow a bit this the third summer. The Musa thompsoni has been in the ground four or five years and never manages to get over a foot tall. There might be some rot on the corm that they are constantly fighting. Maybe I need to dig them up and move them and see what their roots and corms look like. The velutina actually has gotten smaller over the years and only bloomed the first year in the ground...a few years ago. In the same planting bed sikkimensis, balbisiana, itinerans, and ornata have all done quite well.

ryanalan

Maybe not enough sun or soil conditions are off for some strange reason.

Something is certainly off...

I purchased one last year from PDN. They are about 12-13 feet tall as of today and doing really well. I'm in the DFW area.

Move it and see what it does. A solid soil test would be another route.