Bananaman88

We grew bananas out in some of our flower beds at Missouri Botanical Garden in the summers (from May-late Sept.), then we'd cut them back, put them in pots and winter them in the greenhouse. We, too, had a banana at the botanical garden that we thought, at the time was M. basjoo (later turned out to be Orinoco most likely). All that was ever done to protect it was cut it back and put about a 2-3' layer of mulch on it and every May it would return. It was in a bit of a microclimate, I think, as it was within the wall of the Chinese Garden there and we were near downtown so temps were probably moderated by a few degrees. However, we did get regular snows and the ground would freeze. The mulch was the key to keeping the area around the corm from freezing.