Dying banana tree. Please help!
 

I’m pretty much a beginner to growing banana trees and plants in general. I have three banana trees I planted this past January from rhizomes. I have only watered them every week or two, but water then quite a bit each time. They were seemingly doing well until recently. One started dying this past week and another is looking worse the last couple of days. Its hard to see in the photos, but two of them now have green algae or something growing in their dirt now too. Why are they dying? Too much or little water? I’m not sure what to do. https://imgur.com/gallery/ET2kmyt

Re: Dying banana tree. Please help!
 

they say bananas love water. but they are not talking about pots, or in lakes.

your drowning them with love .

get some new potting soil, miracle grow, perlite mix 2/3 potting soil to 1/3 perlite. you dont have to be exact more perlite could be better. pull them out of the pot, clean/wash off the old potting soil. then inspect the corms for rot. clean off the rot if there is any and replant in the new soil. use 1 to 1/2 cups water to start, pouring around the edge of the pot, not next to the plandt and do so every 3 to 4 days there after.

Re: Dying banana tree. Please help!
 

Agreed, classic over watering, esp. the one on the left. Lots of info in the forum on how to attempt a salvage:

Start here... http://www.bananas.org/f2/my-plant-dead-52283.html

...and then do a search for 'over watering' and variations of that and you will find a gold mine of advice.

Good luck!

Re: Dying banana tree. Please help!
 

sorry i was editing my post to you. you may want to read it again.

but yes your watering them to death.

Re: Dying banana tree. Please help!
 

Thank you both for your comments. This is tremendously helpful!

When I repot, would you suggest I use the same pots or move to something larger?

Re: Dying banana tree. Please help!
 

If the potting medium is staying wet for too long and the plant isn't using that moisture, then it can easily start to rot.

Make sure your medium is fast draining and it won't be sitting in water after irrigation, i.e. in a tray of which the rim is higher than the pot bottom. Trays are fine for catching excess water but the bottom of the pot needs to be at least as nigh, if not higher than the top of the tray....just fill the tray with drain rock or something, which can have the added bonus of increasing local humidity....but doooon't let the pot sit in standing water!!!

You will likely need to pull a salvage maneuver on the left side plant for sure....wouldn't hurt with the other two if you are in doubt.

Re: Dying banana tree. Please help!
 

In my opinion..... it depends on how much corm is left. Looking at those pots I probably would not go any bigger, and if you have to trim the corm down it might be beneficial to downsize a bit....but there are definitely different theories on that...

Re: Dying banana tree. Please help!
 

the pots are great for now. when the plants get to where they can push over easily, go to a bit bigger pot. hope they are ok.

Re: Dying banana tree. Please help!
 

Thanks again! This is truly amazing info. I really appreciate it!