Since my musa basjoos each ended up producing around 7 pups this year, they have all been stripped off, either given away or planted somewhere else in the garden since it is more important for me to have a nice strong main-stem instead of a clump of too many bananas. It's also much easier to protect this way.
I am well aware that these guys will continue to try and push leaves slowly as long as the temperature is above 50F so I'll wait until there are no more warmups which should be in about 2 weeks when I cut them down a bit more and over-winter these main stems. I plan on wrapping up the stems in bubble wrap, then tarp material, and then put a few layers of plastic trash bags. I'll surround that with leaf bags, and then a tarp on top of it all to help keep it dry and hopefully save some of the psuedostem.
They are over 5 inches in diameter at the base.
Here's the growth after about 3 hours. It seems like the banana is wasting a bit of energy with this, but I don't think it is warm enough in the northeast to push out an entire leaf.
