Originally Posted by StormyNightWish

I'm in Hanover, MD. We were given Banana pups and just told to chop them to ground level at the first frost. We used their own leaves as insulation and it went fine. We were basically starting with new pups each year. So they were only getting so tall. When I didn't have my dad chop them some came completely back until these last two winters were colder and/or wetter. It has seemed to be a mistake of leaving the whole plant on and pull the dead part in the spring. it's seemed to start some sort of rot. There is still new pups but not all the large ones have grown back in the center. Most have pups coming off of them though.

My other problem is according to google it's a "tree of heaven". The botanist's were being funny when they named this tree... It apparently kills everything around it but emitting something in the ground killing everything around it. My Dad thought it was just another palm type plant. This sucker planted itself in the middle of established mothers. I'm scared to leave the root there but I can't get it to budge. I read it wasn't a good idea to leave the root there it can still grow back and destroy the established mothers.



Also you'll see in the picture. We had a week of rain so i scraped any dark tissue, in medical terminology lets just say I debrided the necrotic tissue and you can see I got good "blood flow" after I did that. I haven't taken a good gander at it since because we've had another several days of rain. Seems to be another Monsoon May this year so far.

Any advice is appreciated.