Kat2

wherever I live (always offered a trade if I spotted something but generally was refused--always gave cuttings from my main road gardens to anyone who asked so I guess I'm even). Tonight I did a brief walkabout in the neighborhood and spotted a banana plant. Cool. So I engaged the owner. "Hey, you have bananas; do you know what type?"

"No, but they're little ones."

Yes, I was all over that until I asked if he'd ever had fruit to which he replied he hadn't. "Are they maybe Dwarf Cavendish?" (That's the one sold here most.)

"YES! That's what I have!"

Drat and darn; got that!

His 2 "stalks" are about 3' tall; each has maybe 6 leaves that are 1.5' x 9" in size. Mine has 15 leaves with some 4' x 2'; she is very lush.

I noticed no pups so a trade couldn't happen even if his is a different variety.

Need to do expand my walking I guess....

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sunfish

Maybe you need a bike

Kat2

You could be right except those things get stolen easily around here; sorry but Jville reminds me of SW/SE DC.

I could drive but you miss a lot if you're driving; I did my best fig spotting when a passenger.

I should take pictures of these because they look nothing like my DC at all; they've very sad. Maybe I should pass on the link to this site?

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Lemmysports

I've become quite obsessed with banana plants, and can spot a banana leaf from quite a distance (even with the many birds of paradise plants around, which can look quite similar.)

Recently on a local walk about, I noticed several "feral" mats of what I believe are orinoco growing on a slope down to the intercoastal located on public land. I was able to make my way down to one mat, and found it thriving, several plants had fruit, several more were flowering, and there were many healthy pups.

About a week later, several pups (I'd say as many as seven) went missing.

I'm not sure what happened, but if I had to venture a guess I'd say two guys in a canoe paddled over and strategically dug up some of the plants. They only took a small percentage of the plants, did it deliberately, and if anything helped thin out the mat and made it healthier... I'm just speculating of course.

I guess what I'm saying is: check your local overgrown public property... It may not be "legal" but it's not exactly rose rustling either.

Kat2

I spotted some in Cocoa when I visited this past summer; they're on the banks of the Indian River and languishing but are on private property so I didn't bring out any collecting tools. I've inquired about them from a local but haven't heard anything yet.

Sometimes I think it's a curse to be able to "spot a specimen" at a bazillion yards or found it such when I was actively collecting figs. A little "start" hurts nobody, does it? (BTW, I made friends with my best fig contributor when I "caught" her pulling a few seedpods off of my plants and invited her to see and grab from the rest; she and her DH ended up with 90% of my apricots over the next 4 years. Glad someone wanted them!)

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Lemmysports

Be careful, not everyone is as nice as you. Even I contradict myself in that I would be more than happy to share with anyone who asked, but god help you if I catch you messing with my plants (or even just on my property) without my permission. I know, I'm not very consistent, but my point is: be careful.

I don't have much of an ethical problem with the fellows who allegedly took some banana plants from public property, only because they seemed to have been dumped there and were not maintained by anyone, in any way, shape, or form. But in any other situation I'd ask first. I'm sure you know how these plants can turn into "your babies" very easily when you put soo much time and effort into them.

Kat2

I absolutely have always asked; not everyone does as was the case of M. Wish I still had the figs she gave me. She grew a fig from a seed in a snack on the plane returning to the US from Germany--gave me rooted starts of that and another in a deli container that I just set in my garden because I sure didn't want FIGS. I finally felt sorry for them and, since they wouldn't die, I put them in the garden later summer never expecting them to grow but they did. The "seed" one was amazingly self fertile and produced both a breba and fall crop. The other was from Smith Island and a really cool white hardy fig with both breba and fall crops. (Actually, that's the only 1 I could eat--I detest figs normally). Lost all in my divorce and such. Oh, well. On to bananas I suppose...

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