PaulOdin

I live about 30 miles north of Orlando. Most of the 'naners you see around here are Orinoco, and I got several bunches of fruit from mine last winter. On the other hand, frost kills the leaves and fruit on any banana and I lost all of the leaves to the 2 freezes we had in February. All have come back, but I don't have blooms yet, possibly due to the draught, so I'll probably be worrying about frost by the time I have bananas ripening again?
That said, I've planted about 20 new cultivars over the last few months. The smaller ones will be protected by plastic sheets if a frost is expected. In this climate I think almost any edible banana will do fine, but unless it is in a very protected spot it will need a few days protection against the weather.
I'd pick what I wanted based upon size of trees, flavor, size of fruit and general attractiveness of the plants. For instance, Rajapuri has a reputation for hardiness, but also has rather small, extremely tasty bananas, and is about 8 feet tall. Red Iholeni is supposed to be more cold sensitive, but has a lot of red in the plant, grows about 14', and only gets an average rating on flavor. Ice Cream has small fruit, great flavor, grows about 12', is a basic green, and has a reputation for cold hardiness. I've also planted Manzano, the local 'Ladyfinger', Kru, Pitogo, Dwarf Brazilian, 1000 Finger, Misi Luki (I think), various Cavendishes, and a bunch of others. In a frost free winter like we had 2 years ago I would expect all to do fine, but w/ even a few icy days any of them would need protection.

Paul