7abZoner

Good luck with your Texas Star bananas! I ordered some from TyTy years ago and they turned out to be M. Ornata. They did survive several Zone 8 winters with protection but the ones I left in the ground perished this winter in a true Zone 7 winter.

My orders came from TyTy in a timely maner too.

RayS

So what happened with the Texas Stars?

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Ray

ron_mcb

well to sum up things without stirring up anything.. it's good to be careful of who you deal with. this applies to buying or trading.. an honest person will at least own up to or offer to make good on mistakes.

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naw mek smaddi ditate fi yuh. naw wan gwan a pawty yuh naggo.

sunfish

I have 2 Texas Star ? The problem is there's no pic's of this plants flower or fruit.So if mine fruit and turn out to be Orinoco ,did I not get Texas Star or is there no such thing ?
Are there any Photo's of this plant ?

sunfish

Texas Star - Banana tree Banana Plants Texas Star Banana tree grows 6-8 ft. tall with tasty, medium size fruit, and produces a sweet flavor. The original trees of the Texas Star banana were obtained from Central Texas. Cold hardy. Approx. 10" to 12" plant with leaves and soil shipped.

TS5 21.95 11.95

chong

The Texas Stars that I received from Ty Ty survived the first winter in my unheated greenhouse and in fact did better than the CA Gold that I got from Joe Real. The CA Gold survived as well, just that it died down to the corm and did not resprout that following Spring. The TX Star grew to over 4 ft. before the onset of Winter. Meanwhile, before chucking the corm of the CA Gold, I removed it from its soil and noticed a couple of white spots on opposite sides of the corm. I promptly cleaned it and dried it out before putting it in a mixture of pumice and water gel. After several months, the white spots developed into 2 pups that grew to over a foot each.

The TX Stars, in the meantime remained at the under 5 ft height into the following Winter, and turned brown as the weather got colder. So did my 5 year old Dwarf Orinoco and D. Brazilian that were trailing it in height. I just left them as they were and withheld watering, thinking that it might go into hybernation. That same Winter, I kept the CA Gold indoors and the pups stayed green. As fate would have it, I lost my job and was pre-occupied in job hunting that I neglected my plants. So by the folowing Spring, I had lost most of my plants, including many bananas. The TX Stars, D. Orinoco, D. Brazilians, even the Thomsonii and CA Hardy (it was over 4 ft tall), were just a hole in their respective pots.

The CA Gold was doing great when I moved it to Richland, WA where I'm currently working, but last Summer I slowly placed it to more sunny spot and all the leaves burned frjom the intense Richland sunshine. I brought it back to its original shady spot and they re grew new leaves.

In November last year, the plants ithat I brought with me in Richland were taken indoors in my living room. All this Winter, the CA Gold did great until two months ago, it was infested with spider mites, and they almost whithered away. Several other bananas were infested as well, and in fact died. The 2 CA Golds are still struggling but I think that they will survive.

I had several banana varieties that were left behind in my home in Seattle, and for a while all were doing great. When the temps dipped in the single digits, all but the TyTy Gold that I got from Richard and one !000 Fingers died. Both are indoors in my house in Seattle and are sporting new leaves.

If my work situation becomes more stable, and I can complete my home project in Seattle, I will definitely order several corms of TX Stars from TyTy. That time will probably come when I'm close to retirement. If only I could have retired a couple of years ago. ( Sigh!)

Hope Harvey can give an update on how his TX Stars are doing.

Also, big thanks to Tony for his update. Hope he can get some bloom/fruit this year! Did you get yours from Ty Ty or TX? I tried emailing the source from TX several years ago, but she never responded.

sunfish

Check this out.

Banana Trees Banana Plants

chong

Thanks, Tony. It looks like they're selling TC'd plants. But without quoting their source, it's just another Dwarf Orinoco. In the past, they've advertised the D. Orinoco as "sometimes called the 'Texas Star' or the 'CA Gold'. . . . " I notice that they've discontinued selling the D. Orinoco. I also notice that they're also selling CA Gold at cut rate prices. Hope that's not another D. Orinoco TC packaged as CA Gold. It would be nice if it's at least a TC of the actual CA Gold.

I bought their Greenhouse Business book, and I didn't find anything new in it. I'm not complaining. They're practicing what they preach.

I really know of only two sources of TX Star - GA and TX. Unless GB got their stock from either source and TC'd them, I will be skeptical as to whether it's the same as the one from Ty Ty.

Harvey got several pups of TX Star from a grower from UT after I posted his pictures here. The grower indicated that he got his stock from TyTy.

Thanks again.

sunfish

My thoughts exactly. He has said in the past that Texas Star and C.G. is orinoco.I think if these were tc of T.S. and C.G. he would ask a higher price.

chong

But, by golly, I'm just tempted to order a few in the hope that they're the real McCoy! From what I've seen of the pictures of the fruit from Ty Ty and TX, tlhey look very similar to the D. Orinoco and CA Gold. But then so does the D. Brazilian. There may be differences in taste though. I will need to try all of them to tell for sure.

Thanks again, Tony.

sunfish

Here is what I have as Texas Star.6' p-stem.May bloom this year

gander54

Their adds used to be a lot more risque" than they are now. I did order from them couple of years ago spent way more than 200. I bought 3 varieties of Bamboo and I dont even remember how many varieties of bananas. I dont have any of the bananas and I only have 2 of the bamboos and one is not what I ordered. The bananas did not grow for me but that is the first time in years that my old bananas barely grew also. We have been having summer droughts for the last few years and this is not so normal in this area. Now the bananas did not die they just never go over a foot high.

mewdeeone

Ty Ty Nursery has literally NOTHING on site. Everything is drop-shipped. They have a 6 acre lot down in Tifton, GA and from what I understand, it's horribly disorganized, they are as rude as they can possibly be, and heck...I posted a comment about them on pissedconsumer.com and I'm currently being SUED BY THE OWNER OF TY TY in Federal Court out of Valdosta (I'm so worried..can't you tell). I've spoken with previous employees and the work conditions are HORRIBLE. The owner CLAIMS to be a grad of Clemson Univ. but conveniently, the alumni office can find nothing on him. DO YOUR RESEARCH before ever ordering from an online company. The website might be spectacular because there's a tech school down the street with students who need side jobs. There are MULTITUDES of websites where you can screen complaints, etc. The BBB is also a good avenue. Trust me..if a plant can be drop-shipped for Ty Ty, it can also be sent directly to YOU. I have YET to want a plant that I can't get my hands on that Ty Ty can. He has purchased multitudes of Google Ad Words so his ads come up first...it's a shame he had to do that, but if he relied on word-of-mouth, he'd be bankrupt.