Banana Trees turning brown and leaning. Is this normal for winter?? Help I'm new...
 

Hi all! I recently moved into a home and was very pleasantly surprised to find that what I thought was ornamental palms is actually several banana trees growing in my backyard. The trees have done good all summer and we have gotten several bunches of great tasting bananas. Recently as temperatures here in Houston, TX have started to drop for winter I've noticed several branches and leaves of the trees turning brown and drying up. Some of the tress also seem to be leaning a bit more than before as well. Is this normal for winter months?? Is there anything I can do to help the trees stay strong and healthy? Also one of the trees completely fell over and the top broke off leaving me a banana tree "stump"; should I pull this out? Based on the age of my home, I assume the trees are roughly 5 years old. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Photos below are of my trees.

Re: Banana Trees turning brown and leaning. Is this normal for winter?? Help I'm ne
 

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Re: Banana Trees turning brown and leaning. Is this normal for winter?? Help I'm ne
 

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Re: Banana Trees turning brown and leaning. Is this normal for winter?? Help I'm ne
 

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Re: Banana Trees turning brown and leaning. Is this normal for winter?? Help I'm ne
 

Ok, let's do this.
#1-please add your location and your grow zone to your profile. This helps other members to accurately help you.
#2-leaves turning brown, looking at your picts, normal. There are different ideas on this. If it has any green at all leave it on the plant. Or some members really like the clean look so any brown or damaged leaves are removed. I call this one growers choice. When they are no longer doing the plant any good I cut them off and drop them at the base of the plant.
#3-leaning plants. Your plants are close together and are competing for ground for there roots, and possibly for sunlight. Leaning normal. As these plants mature you may need to prop when supporting fruit.
#4-plant stump. Easy one. Just cut the stump off at the ground. The plant is more than likely done with it anyway. If you dug it out you would disturb more roots of the near plants. Cut low, let it go.
#5-I wanted to add this. Do you know what kind of banana you are growing? If you did, and you had your grow zone listed, others in a similar grow zone would have a idea how that plant would grow for them. If you do not know what your plant is, you can post picts in the id section of the forum. Picts of leaves, stems ,flowers, and fruit. I hope this helps. Good luck with your plants.

Re: Banana Trees turning brown and leaning. Is this normal for winter?? Help I'm ne
 

Did you cut down the plants that already produced bananas? The plant will only produce bananas one time. After the bananas are harvested from the plant lots of people cut that plant down. Your plants look good well established, so they probably don't die back each year. How cold does it get at your house? Banana plants don't like to be cold.:goteam:

Re: Banana Trees turning brown and leaning. Is this normal for winter?? Help I'm ne
 

I have updated my profile to reflect my location but I am not sure about what "Zone" I am in (or even what that means...) I will submit a few pics to the ID forum to try and figure out what kind of banana trees I have.

Re: Banana Trees turning brown and leaning. Is this normal for winter?? Help I'm ne
 

Your zone is very close to mine 8b-9-ish. My naners always turn brown and die back in the winter, and depending on what kind will reflect the severity. Also seems that the more frost I get the worse it affects them. The stalk which fruits will eventually too. Like another poster says also you have a lot plants congested in the mat. I've also noticed that as my mats get older and thicker sometimes the outer ones will lean and sometimes fall. Hope this helps.
Bo

Re: Banana Trees turning brown and leaning. Is this normal for winter?? Help I'm ne
 

Aber82:



Can you take/post a closer picture of the banana bunch?

Re: Banana Trees turning brown and leaning. Is this normal for winter?? Help I'm ne
 

According to the helpful folks in the ID forum, I have Orinoco bananas.

HMelendez- Below is a picture of the banana bunch.

Re: Banana Trees turning brown and leaning. Is this normal for winter?? Help I'm ne
 

Yes, they do look like my Orinoco. Mine naturally have some leaf yellowing each year, just like that as temps and light levels start to drop. Dont dig up the stump and throw it away, as the banana stem dies after fruiting, it will produce more pups/babies from this stump. Just cut it off a bit above the ground after the fruits ripen to make it tidy, and new pups will sprout from these. Last spring I threw a few pieces of one of these stumps that I had cut into chunks, and that did not appear to have any growing points or eyes at all, into the woods next to my yard. While digging up my bananas to store for winter last month, I noticed little 1 foot banana plants growing out in the woods in deep oak leaves where I threw these chunks of the stump. They were still attached to these shriveled chunks I threw away, and they are now safely growing in front of my living room window in pots. Now I keep all pieces of the underground corm, or rhizome that break off when I dig them, and pot them up to sprout as I am trying to build up my number of plants. The leaning may be due to crowding, as long as they dont start falling over from rot of some sort, but in colder areas they may die down to the ground. If the one that fell over is one that had fruited, that is why it fell. Once a stem fruits it will die, and pups will come up from the base of that stem.