Vickie H.

I have not been here for a long time. My hardy bananas are all mulched and I hope live this winter too. Right now we have 8 inches of snow on the ground.

rwood1754

I am glad I live in Phoenix. Even here it was a rough winter..The last couple months was warm days for a week, then a frost. My bananas started growing twice only to have the new leaves frozen. It has been about 3 weeks now since last frost. Plants all starting to grow good. Getting out the weeds. It got down to 17 degrees one morning in my back yard. But I had three plants survive with only the leaves & upper stalk damaged. All were ice creams. A raja puri in front yard that is warmer did well also. I had a 3 year old pineapple plant that I left outside by a west block wall in a raised garded by the bananas that surved the winter with only the outer leaf tips frozen. Had leaves over it and a sheet. Other ones in pots in another part of the yard, half of them froze out. One of the ice creams that survived with the stem intact is about 6 feet tall now as has a new set of leaves. There are two plants about the same height...a mother & an offshoot. As soon as everything starts leafing out good I'll take photos. My strawberry guava survived with only minor damage. My manilla mango froze out after the first frosts. The pineapple guavas do great as can take 15 degrees. Here at my house my plants had to survive a temperature range of 17 degrees this winter to 116 degrees last summer. Takes some tough plants to do that.

waggoner41

Where are you located and what zone?

If your bananas are well mulched the corms will survive the winter even if the upper part of the plant dies back completely.

__________________
Soil Type: Black Loam

Illia

Yep, most semi hardy to hardy bananas can take snow or even temps in the 20's pretty well. Not the leaves and not always the stem, but the corm itself (roots and all) usually live through it. Unless you get a LOT of rain like me, you should be pretty fine. Fully hardy bananas like Basjoo are pretty tough!

trebor

All this talk of snow has me getting cold .. Boy I am soooo spoiled living in South Fla. the weather is great and I guess Im am just a lucky guy ..

__________________


If ya can't eat it, it ain't growing in my back yard !

Illia

I'll take my minute and rare snowfall here over your citrus quarantine, hurricanes, thunderstorms, excess population of people, and limestone-rich land ready to open another sinkhole, haha!

Vickie H.

Waggoner I live in Missouri zone 6. I have my bananas stored in my basement. I have a phillippine banana, a thia black, musa sikkimensis, siam ruby, a E. Glaucum and blood bananas, and musa basjoo ones. I also have ones I grow in water in my ponds. They are stored in water in my basement right now. They have been in water since 2007 and 2008. They are potted in pots in dirt setting in water. I bought one at a nursery in water. in 2008 I tried taking one of my own pups and put it in water like you can do a canna and slowly got it use to being in water. It worked it is still in water. I do not know if all my banans will live this winter in basement but most do. I think I am a banana hog anyway. I had back surgery last yr and it has taken me a long time to recover. I still am not as good as I used to be but working on it.

caliboy1994

I am spoiled too. Winter is over here, and the bananas are starting to wake up.

__________________
"The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings."
~ Masanobu Fukuoka

Find me on linktree here as Solarpunk Farmer:
https://linktr.ee/solarpunkfarmer

waggoner41

I don't envy you the work it must take to move your plants in and out every year. Our temperatures here (zone 11) stay between 15C (60F) and 27C (85F) with few exceptions.

Being pretty new at this I have never heard of growing bananas in water but an interesting concept. Our climate here would be great for growing in water for 8 months out of the year with the heavy rainfall that we get from April to November. I'l see if I can find out more about that.

From mid November until April the summer goes dead dry and I would have to make provision to keep up with the evaporation. The cost of water here is quite high.

Thank you for your information.

__________________
Soil Type: Black Loam

Vickie H.

Oh it is a job to take them inside. I am 67 and my husband is 63. We have both had back surgery. Well if you could grow some in water it might be better in the dry season. But they can go dry in basement and do okay because it stays between 50* and 60* down there in winter. I have 9 shop lights going. I also have way to many other plants. My bananas are outside from June til Oct it is a short season for them here. In July they start looking pretty good.

john_ny

By the way Illia, the citrus quarantine is starting to come off. It's still on a case by case basis. Some, but not all, nurseries, if they meet certain criteria, are allowed to ship out of state again.

__________________
John

cheson74

Winter sucks here too! Banana fruit is taking forever to ripen!

__________________