saltydad

Hi Cory. I'm in Maryland, also zone 7a. I have a DC (Dwarf Cavendish). It is about 4 years old. I kept it potted, moving up to bigger pots as it grew. Pups by the way are offshots from the main banana corm, and are a benefit of growing bananas- you get more free! I used to take my DC outside in spring and back inside in fall, following the slow acclimation schedule as described above. This spring its so big that I decided to plant it near my pond, and then dig it up and repot it when it gets cold. I have 17 other varieties of bananas that I grow; all but one are moved inside for the winter. If you get a hold of a Musa basjoo banana, you can overwinter it outside in 7a. The first few years I cut the stem (technically called the pseudostem, or p-stem) to about 2 ft. in height and covered them with 2 ft. of straw mulch. This past year I didn't protect it at all; I didn't cut it and let the dead leaves and stem act as mulch and its doing fine. From one p-stem it now has over 25! Let us know where you are located so our advice can be tailored to your circumstances. Good luck. Take a look at my Photo Gallery to see the basjoo. The pic in my avatar is the basjoo.

__________________
Men In Nursing- "A Few Good Men"

"Gardening is the purest of human pleasures." - Francis Bacon





"If by a liberal, they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind; someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions; someone who cares about the welfare of the people, their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, their civil liberties; someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicion that grips us; that is what they meant by a liberal, I am proud to be a liberal."
John F. Kennedy, September, 1960


http://flickr.com/photos/saltydad/ and
http://community.webshots.com/user/saltydad
http://s751.photobucket.com/albums/xx151/saltydad/