Starstryke

Greetings,

I have been feeling the itch to add to my banana collection but need some info regarding a species that I have found no good information about. The bananas in question are some variegated banana plants that I have seen on ebay the last few weeks but I cannot find any information on the species that they list. The current Auction can be found here XL 3' Bright not Aeae RARE Variegated Thai Banana "Florida" Collector Musa | eBay . I am tempted but would like to know something about the plant before I spend that much. Also a question regarding the plants I have now. I have five different species in pots at the moment and one rather large banana that I could not fit into a pot out in the yard. The potted bananas are all between 4-6ft tall and seem to be doing fine but I have a question. Since they are not directly in the elements the dead leaves that droop down have not separated and are starting to build up. Can I cut these off with scissors without harming the plants ? At this point I am concerned that the dead leaves are making the water runoff instead of going into the potting soil. The other question probably belongs in the cold hardy section but I was wondering if I could move any of the pups I get off of my potted bananas and get them to fruit in Zone 9A. I have currently in pots, Blue Java, Gros Michel, Pisang Ceylon, Double, and I believe the last one is a Mysore. All of these bananas were potted within the last year except the Double which is going on two years now. Sorry about the wall of text with this one but this pretty much covers all of my questions regarding bananas this year.

Hassman

I live in Thailand but I cannot see what type of Thai banana that would be.

As for the leaves; yes, cut them off, it will not harm the plant in any way.
On my plantation we regularly trim off old/small/discolored leaves with a curved knife.

The leaves contain a lot of potassium so you may want to chop them into smaller bits and leave them in the pot -they will break down and become fertilizer.

Cheers,
Hassman