snc

Even though I am at still about 2 months from the first frost I wanted to pose this question. Do I cut my bananas back or just let them wilt over and let them be after the first frost. I have done both in the past and have seen both methods used around town with other peoples bananas. I am worried that if i cut them with the warm winters here and only a handful of nights with frost (zone 8 with the ocean 1 mile away and the river 1/2 mile on the otherside) they will continually resprout and then freeze, repeat all winter long draining them of energy. they also will be getting almost a full days worth of sun and reflected heat during the winter as they are on the south side. the annual avg low during the winter months (dec-feb) is upper 30's with avg highs around 60. any thoughts opinions experiences? the b's i have are red abys, saba, mysore, laterita, sikki's, basjoos. thanks.

PT DUffy

I'm basically in the same zone and I just leave mine alone. Any cutting I do is in the Spring if needed. This Spring I didn't have to trim anything, which was weird since it had been the coldest in a couple yrs...it just missed the Bananas.....
Cheers,
Pat

Bananaman88

I agree with Pat. I wouldn't cut them back. I try to limit my cut backs to spring as well. Even though they make look sort of ratty with the leaves all yellow and hanging down, I think it can add a little cold protection to the pseudostem if you are in a real cool area. Having said that, I will take the occasional leaf off but I absolutely do not cut back the p-stem until I see what, if anything, has been damaged by the cold come spring. In my opinion, cutting the pstem back just delays flowering.