TommyMacLuckie

Sorry, no pictures yet - I need to get some - but one of the two groves of Sabas I have, the very first plant is blooming and it is incredible. The plants themselves are no more than maybe 12 feet to crown. It looks like the 2nd and 3rd plants might get a little taller. They're so slow though. Wow. I've seen good roads go bad in the amount of time it takes these bananas to grow to 10 feet.

I had one earlier this year that was doing great - and then the wind storm we got nailed with on July 3rd broke a bunch of banana plants - and one of them was a nice tall Saba. It popped out a bloom after I had to cut it. It didn't do anything worth talking about other than it finished its life real quick.

Just wondering if anyone else has the same experience I have with Sabas - real real slow - but awesome to look at, stand under and behold. Oh yeah - the fruit - I've read that the fruit is really good. I have yet to eat any. I'm looking forward to it.

The other nice thing is the one grove I have has about 3 nice sword suckers on it so I'm going to be moving them around at some point. I just need to figure out when to cut them. Which, for these plants, I really don't know.

southernbanana

i have a small saba growing beside a ice cream and nam wah. The saba is the smallest and seems to put leaves out slower. but good things take time. Have you been fertilizing it ? Mine seem to love the fert.

pitangadiego

They seem to take a little longer than some others. For me, Mysore was much slower than Sweetheart, and so forth.

They are good eating bananas, if you let the ripen up. Similar in size and flavor to Praying Hands, also.

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frog7994

my Saba sits between my Gro Michal and Icecream.The GM seemed to grow a lot faster than the other two But as time wears on the Saba has a much bigger trunk and is taller than the other two. Both the GM and The Icecream have fruit now I think the Saba has 10 feet or more to go before it might bare fruit.

Rmplmnz

You have to go way deep on the corm...think Palmetto Palm..the corm is very thick and attaches close to the parent. Separate when they are short and cut as close to the mother as possible. I have cut them off at ground level (same pup numerous times) just to thin them and when guests come over I would separate a very short plant (that I had previously trimmed) that weighed well over ten pounds. They are very durable...they pop pups out of (all over the) corms that I have dug up and composted.

TommyMacLuckie

So is it safe to say that if I do remove a pup or pups and don't do it right and get zero roots then that pup will be, well, dead. And so it will grow another pup from that one I would think.

Some are pups are easy to remove some are hard to remove. When I've wanted something I've always let it grow a good bit before removing it - that way I know I'll get roots with it.

So I'm gonna let the saba pups keep growing. Someday I'll remove them if I need to.

Rmplmnz

Zero "corm"....the very bottom of the pup...you can accidentally shave all the roots off and the pup will live if you get the bulk of the "corm bulb".

That works...you can actually cut them off at ground level/below ground level and the corm will keep growing getting thicker.

The key is to have the "right tool for the job"...something that will slice deep and all the way through the point that you are separating the pup.