Pancrazio

This is interesting. I hoped to have a bit more "tolerance" from pstems (let's say at least -4C for the hardiest ones), but this sound realistic and consistent with other things i have seen. This isn't bad at all - in know some other things that are less tollerant than that and i managed to overwinter them just fine (i'm speaking about mangos actually), the point is that right now i have a shortage of "good spots" in my property.

This is where i disagree. My reasoning is as follows:
Comune di Sicilia has been in italy for ages (at least 5 centuries, likely more).
Thus, this plants was known to italian travellers, merchants, farmes in he last 5 centuries.
I can't believe to to fact i'm the first one willing to plant it outside its natural range.
Then, this implies that in the centuries till now some other people tried and failed.
Thus this plant is actually already planted to the limit of its natural range. I can't stretch it further.
This should explai why i failed miserably with that one last year, and why i shouldn't bother of growing it next year.
(One could argue that i could protect it better than people were capable of doing in 1700... i would second that, if the plant were easy to protect. I have seen plants growing on the coast near Rome and they were 4 metres tall at fruiting age. But indeed they were healty.)

Can you elaborate a bit on this? What do you mean by "without protection"? Are you thinking about frost cloth, good sheltered place, cages/greenhouses, or what? What kind of Namwah varieties are you spaking about? I tought the most interesting one was the dwarf namwhat, are there some other cultivars wich are hardier?

My problem with container is that they don't allow the pseudostem to "lay down" and thus limits the places where i can keep them (i don't own many places with a roof higher that 2.10m, so basically just some very dwarf cultivar could be grown in my conditions). Now, all the ultra-dwarf are so demanding in heat that the place where i can grow them aren't good anyway.
I will try the pot nonetheless anyway. Maybe trimming down and choosing a small pot will allow me to limit the size of the plant, and i'll be able to fruit it under 2.10 (i'm thinking about Dwarf namwah, and icecream). Does the wind tip the pots often, in you experience? I would hate to have my plats knocked over continously...

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Dalmatiansoap

Yes, greenhouse would be a "serious" way of protection IMO.
D. Namwah would be the best choice but there are many variations in Awak subgroup that are still not tested for hardiness in our conditions.

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venturabananas

I have 5 Pisang Awak variants (mostly sold as something other than Pisang Awak). Dwarf Namwah is the most cold tolerant of them, and has the advantage of being shorter, though it's not really a small plant. Mine have fruited at 6-9', and the diameter as the base of the pseudostem is very large.

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Pancrazio

Well, actually there are few bananas that are small plant, too bad. Choosing the onest that fruit regularly under 6 feet reduces the number of them quite a bit.
Still, in think that plants 6' are manageable.
I have this theory (which is just an uneducated guess) that says the if i don't let plants to form a mat they will fruit at a shorter height. I guess that this also mean smaller bunch, but i don't have choiches.

This may be the biggest issue. A very large pseudostem makes an heavy plant, and thus something hard to move. Honestly when i moved my "comune di sicilia" it was barely 6' but also very heavy (a rough estimate was around 60kg at the moment i was digging it outside the hole where it was planted).

@asacomm: sorry for hijacking the thread, i used this one to get some infos i was eager to get.

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asacomm

Yes, that is also one of the biggest problems. So I cut back the pstem to the
possible height to fit the height of the eaves. The disadvantage in this case is
that the numbers of banana fingers are less and the size of each banana is
smaller. But this is still better than killing the mother plants.
In my experience, Dwarf varieties are less hardy than normal sized ones, so I
still prefer normal sized ones .

About hijacking, don't warry about that, and I am enjoying vrious comments and opinions.

Pancrazio

I guess that in that case the problem is: does the advatage of a smaller (and easier to protect) plant counterweight the disavantage of not having a more frost-hardy specimen?
I guess that any zone pusher had to find its best solution alone.
Just one more question: can you please give me vague indication on the time that bunch need to stay in the plant before being harvested, for the plant you grew in your climate?
I'm vaguely assumin that i won't be able to ripen any bunch that arrives later than July... ripening time is one of the biggest issue.

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asacomm

Under our climatical condition, banana starts to ripe within 5 months of
time after flowering.
So even if it fortunately starts to flower early in June, harvesting time comes
only after September. Then additional repening shall be performed indoor
of the house.
In my case, if it flowers in July, for example, I usually harvest the green
fingers in November and bring them into a warm room for artificial reipening.
Then you can eat them latest in December.

Dalmatiansoap

Today

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