Adrian Lee

Hi everybody, this is my first post even though I've been getting a lot of information from this site for a few months now. I've recently gone bananas over banana plants, but as I live in an apartment, I can only grow them in pots. Nevertheless, I have a bright and sunny apartment with a balcony so I'll do what I can.

My question is this: I have a musella lasiocarpa that is grown indoors.
As you can see, the pups are getting quite big.



About two and half weeks ago, I decided to try separating a couple of them. So I dug the soil around them a little bit, and I sawed them away from the main plant. The part that was below the soil was thicker than the pseudostem and white. And on one of them, had some roots. Unfortunately I accidentally sawed off most of the roots leaving some stubs. I then stuck them in a pot with some potting mix, and watered them using a couple of drops of Superthrive. I placed them in a bright room but making sure there was no direct sunlight.



As each day passed they started to wilt more and more, and eventually I cut off all leaves except for the newest one.


It's been two and half weeks, and the stems still feel firm to the touch. Should I have cut off all the leaves right from the beginning and just planted the stems? Do you think there's a chance that these will take root? I've searched for all the separating-pups topics and read them all but none of them mention anything about whether to cut off the leaves. Is there anything else I should know? Any help is much appreciated.

Gabe15

Musella suckers different from other bananas. You may be able to cut off single pups, but really if you want to divide it with the best results, you need a group of pups that are all attached to a big hunk of corm from the mother. Dont throw yours out though, they still might have a chance. Until they get really big, its hard to just cut one pup off because they dont really form corms of thier own. You can leave the mother in that container as long as you want and it will flower and thrive with no extra repotting. Dont worry about the pups, if they live, then great, if they die, know next time to get a bug chunk, but I dont think there is much you can do right now to encourage them to grow if they normally wouldnt.

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.

Adrian Lee

Thanks for the info. I'll definitely try to get a big chunk of corm next time. It's also good to know that I won't have to repot it. It's no fun trying to repot something that size. The last time I repotted it, I ended up bruising some of the pseudostem!