My bananas are taking over the world.
 

We bought these lovely little (1 - 4' and 1 - 1') Misi Luki plants in a little 1gal pot about 2-3 years ago. We planted them near a fence and promptly ignored them. Now, they are GIANT trees trying to take over our yard. They are producing tons of wonderfully sweet and creamy bananas to distract us in hopes that we won't notice their impending takeover.

How do we control these maniacal nanners!? We really would like to reduce them to maybe 3-4 plants instead of the 15+ that are there without making them go into pup overdrive.

A friend of mine told me you have to cut them from the corm or more will pop up.. :eek: Why oh why can't they behave like our mild mannered Dwarf Cavendish??!

Re: My bananas are taking over the world.
 

I have not seen them in holland yet.

Re: My bananas are taking over the world.
 

I'm sure once they learn how to knit sweaters you'll see them. They are diabolical.

No advice on how to cull the stampeding herd?

Re: My bananas are taking over the world.
 

You will need to remove some of the small ones that grow up from the larger ones. Generally speaking each mother plant should only have two or three pups for ideal fruit production. I would start by removing any pups behind the mothers against the fence before they destroy it.

Re: My bananas are taking over the world.
 

Here are the marauding bananas. I know we need to thin them out, we're just not sure how to do it. We should have never planted them at the fence line (darn that hindsight..) but now we have to fix the problem. Luckily we are replacing the fencing soon so we'll be able to get back there to do whatever we need to do to reduce their numbers.

Yes, we are banana dumbheads. Now we need to learn how to be responsible banana parents.

I've read and heard conflicting methods on how to proceed thinning them out but I don't want to do the wrong thing and kill them all. I really do love my bananas.








(images are also in my gallery)

Re: My bananas are taking over the world.
 

Great pictures. I allow them to invade my garden.

ron

Re: My bananas are taking over the world.
 

Just take a chainsaw and thin them out. There is no real special way to thin out a clump.Its up to you how many and how much you want when it comes to bananas. Remove all but 1 or 2 pups and chainsaw the rest. Save 1 or 2 mother plants. Remove any bananas that have already produced fruit. Its real hard to kill a banana plant. I have had corms producing pups after i cut them into small pieces, and left out of the ground dry after 4 months.:rollerbananadone:

Re: My bananas are taking over the world.
 

Wonderful!! :2223: I was conerned with the bananas behaving like a hydra would, cut off one head and 3 more grow. Glad to know I don't have to worry!! YAY!

Thank you for the info!! We do have a rather handy chainsaw which I will put to good use very shortly. As to how to deal with the pups, should they just be cut off evenly with the ground or do we need to dig them out with a shovel?

Re: My bananas are taking over the world.
 

Just cutting them at ground level may not kill them. You should try to get as much of the pup off the mother corm as possible.

Re: My bananas are taking over the world.
 

After the winter we had here, I would love to see my bananas be fruitful and multiply like that. Or, I guess it would be multiply, and THEN be fruitful. :)

Re: My bananas are taking over the world.
 

*lol@Anna*

Dang Kara... I only wish I had your problem.

Re: My bananas are taking over the world.
 

He he, right tool for the job, Kara?
I think you would be better off with a machete or even a chefs-knife.

:bungejumpnaner:

Re: My bananas are taking over the world.
 

It might be a while but when we do the deed and set out to battle the bananas, I'll try to save the pups. I will be very happy to send them to people who want them. Just pay priority shipping and you too can have the Diabolical Lukies of Doom!

:2169:


That's a lot of machete work.. :2727:

Re: My bananas are taking over the world.
 

Even to the UK ?:raftingnaner:

Re: My bananas are taking over the world.
 

Yeah me too. Nice looking bananas you have.

Re: My bananas are taking over the world.
 

I don't know anything about the agricultural export regulations or if the pup would get there alive. :(