Okay, so I'm in one of the local nurseries today looking for some elephant ear plants. I head to the waterplant section to find what I'm looking for.
I was just there a couple days earlier and was surprised to see a bunch of familiar looking banana leaves. Apparently a new shipment of banana trees came in. Mostly little baby Basjoos, some dwarf cavendish, and a couple ensete maurelli. Even more surprising to me was that they had all of these bananas growing with the pots either half or totally submerged underwater.
I checked the tags on the plants and only the ensete said "Likes moist soil but not soaking." I've heard and read many times that bananas don't like their feet wet. Am I mistaken? Is it different for small plants?
Anyhow I usually wouldn't care about something like this. If I'm at the plant store and see a potted cedar or something else tipped over I wouldn't think twice about it. However these were bananas and up until this year they have been really hard to find around here. I really do like these plants and it p!ssed me off to think that these guys might be murdering all these banana plants.
So I take my elephant ear up to the till and after paying I asked the lady politely why all their banana plants are being grown as waterplants? Her response was "Oh, those aren't REAL banana plants they are just look alikes." I said "Sorry but I grow those exact same plants and I'm quite sure they are bananas. I'm not an expert but everything I've read says that bananas don't like their feet wet."
So she says "I'm not sure lets call the expert." So the expert comes over and the woman at the till explains that I'm curious about the banana plants. The expert says "Oh that's how banana plants like it. They ARE waterplants." I responded with "I really don't think they are. I grow those plants and read about them all the time." She replies with "Well, have you ever been anywhere tropical cuz I can assure you that they do grow in water!" At this point she seems quite annoyed with me questioning her "expertise".
"Oh well" I said, "I'm not trying to start an argument. I hope that someone comes and buys them all real quick before they rot." Then I walked out with the expert glaring at me!
Now I normally don't get confrontational but some of those plants were looking pretty sad and I really just wanted to help.
Am I wrong? Can bananas grow as waterplants?
If not, was I wrong for saying something? What would you do?
