Banana noobie looking for advice
 

I recently came across a banana seller called Greenearth Inc. and ordered my first two banana's - two Grand Nain's. I've had them for about a month and they've both grown quite a few new leaves, but not much height yet. I'm in Zone 9 (Houston TX). I'm thinking of ordering some more like Ice Cream, Rajapuri, and Williams Hybrid. I'm mainly looking to block road noise, and think it'd be great to eat free bananas all the time!
Does anyone have any recommendations on these three new breeds i'm thinking about, knowing i'm a noobie and am I ordering from a good seller? My first two from them came very well packaged and were perfect, but i've seen some slightly lower prices on other sites as well.
Also, how much and how often should I put some fertilizer on them? Right now they're probably 12-14" tall.

Thanks!

Re: Banana noobie looking for advice
 

Hey, Russ! Welcome to the forum. Glad to have another Houstonian on here. There have been about 3 or 4 join in the past few months. All three of the varieties you mentioned should do well here. I have Raja Puri and Ice Cream and they are both doing well. I've never ordered from that vendor before but if you were happy with the first two you got, I can't see any reason not to continue ordering from them. There are several people on this site who have businesses selling bananas as well, including Media Hound (the owner/operator of the site). I'll be happy to share some pups as well since we're in the same neck of the woods. Where exactly are you in Houston?

As for your fertilizer question, you're still probably OK to give them light doses of fertilizer every couple of weeks until say mid-late Oct. here. I wouldn't feed them too heavily since we are heading towards the end of summer. I'd just shoot for getting them well established before winter gets here.

Re: Banana noobie looking for advice
 

I'm in Cypress, near HP/Compaq between 249 and 290. I'd be willing to drive to Pearland for some pups though! I've only had my grand nains for about a month and i'm already having a blast watching them grow. I'm overly anxious for them to get big. If i'm buying pups, how many years can I expect to wait to start seeing fruit?

Re: Banana noobie looking for advice
 

That was a fast reply! Well, it depends on several things: the variety, how well you care for them, how cold it gets each winter, how much rain we have, etc. I'm not sure how cold-hardy you're going to find Grand Nain to be as it is a Cavensdish variety if I'm not mistaken. The Cavendish don't seem to be overly cold hardy here. My Super Dwarf and Dwarf Cavendish usually don't fare too well in the winter and I'm probably 30-40 miles further south than you. I'd plan on giving them some protection if I were you. Check out the cold hardy page and search some of the threads for how people protect their bananas. You should find a wealth of info.

Re: Banana noobie looking for advice
 

Thanks for the pointer! I bought some citris/avacado/fruit type fertilizer spikes and spiked them into the ground about 2-3 feet from each of the babies. I also ate some bananas I bought at the store and buried the peels in between them :).

One question I thought of - A leaf (one of the original ones) on each has a browned dried up area, should I leave them alone or cut them off and leave them on the ground?

Re: Banana noobie looking for advice
 

If it has turned completely brown and has dried up go ahead and cut it. Until it has dried, it is still providing at least some photosynthetic ability to the plant. Hey, if you want to, go to the top of the page where it says "members currently in chatroom". Click on chatroom and we can carry on in there.