fmu65

I live in Chicago, so I would imagine it will be a challenge to see fruit on my banana. However, I had a friend tell me he thought bananas (especially in a pot) typically die after fruiting. I asked him the usual questions about water, food, and light, and everything seemed correct. Is this something that happens for dwarf varieties in containers or did he do something wrong?

sunfish

They all die after fruiting.The stem with the fruit will die,the corm and pups do not


Info: General Growing Information - Bananas Wiki

fmu65

Thank you for the info and the link to the wiki. If the plant fruits and dies without any pups, will the root system eventually put out a pup?

sunfish

Usually yes

oakshadows

Spend some time at the Wiki and learn which bananas produce fruit the fastest. In your area it is going to be a hard task to get fruit but many others have gotten there. Good luck.

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palmtree

I've never seen a healthy banana not produce pups before it died from fruiting. My ice cream banana will probably be getting ready to fruit by next summer and it already has a pup coming up (and they are known to not make pups until they are about half way to fruting.

Unfortunately when a banana fruits, the mother plant dies, but the clump of banana plants keeps living on so you dont lose much. And some banana plants take almost a year before they start to deteriorate in health after fruting (although they wont make any more leaves after fruiting and all the energy will go to pupping).

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Location: New York City, zone 7b