Cutting back tropical bananas for storage--sort of picture intensive
 

I have several 12 foot bordelons potted that need to go into a 10 foot tall greenhouse for winter. So here's a good way to solve the problem: cut them back at least a month before frost--so they have time to grow back some top growth. Since I've tried this, I've told several of my customers to handle their tropicals in the same way, cutting them back at least a month before frost date. That way they will still have growth on them when they come inside to look good. The only way you wouldn't want to do that is if they might have a bloom hiding in there. But it seems safe to do with two year olds here in Indiana.

Here's the bordelon before at 11 feet

Here's the top of it, all cut off and ready to feed to dad's calves (who by the way, have gotten smart and realized they can reach over the fence and "trim" my other bananas as they are growing!)

Bordelon stump 4 feet tall, right after cutting around 330 pm



and now three hours later at 630 pm

Now the same banana today:


The one I cut off about 6 weeks ago, I have to really look for it in the greenhouse to know which one it is.The only clue is one leaf that is only partially there, and a little step in the trunk:

Here's another shot of it where you can see that one of the leaves was inside the trunk and it got cut in half when I cut the plant off 6 weeks ago.
But all that growth is in the last 6 weeks, it didn't have a leaf on it!