Growing (and fruiting?) bananas in colder cilmates.
 

Hi, this is my first post here. This will be my second year since I first started growing banana plants. I'm in Ohio and it gets really cold. My first plant is a musa Java ice cream and I just brought it inside for the winter. It's about 6 feet tall now. I have it in my grow area with artificial lights. I looked around for a bit and couldn't really find my exact question answered. So what is the coldest climates people have actually gotten fruit from? Is there a better variety to try?

Re: Growing (and fruiting?) bananas in colder cilmates.
 

Welcome!

I've heard the Tall Orinoco is at at the top of the list for cold hardy fruiting varieties. I have a buddy down the road who digs up his 15 foot Orinocos and dry stores them at an angle in his garage in a loose open bag with some soil still packed on the roots and he plants them back each spring without losing any. Some people north of us in Tennessee leave them outside all year and they do fine as well. You're in a very colder zone than we are here in the Atlanta area so if you go with that variety, I'd dry store them over winter for sure.

I received a Tall Orinoco corm from a good buddy on the forum and it already grew 3 feet in a month in a 5 gallon pot! I'm going to keep it under lights this winter and I'll try to leave some outside next year once I get some pups.

I'm sure all the experts here can give you lots more info etc. Hope it works out for ya!

Re: Growing (and fruiting?) bananas in colder cilmates.
 

Oh okay, thanks! I figured keeping to growing over winter would give it more of a head start but this will not be an option if mine gets much taller and I run out of ceiling space. I'll definitely have to try that kind next.

Re: Growing (and fruiting?) bananas in colder cilmates.
 

Hey, also check out this link: Growing With CFLs: A Beginner's Guide

This may help you out. It really helped me!