fish2026

Well I went overboard and have about 450 plants from Agri-start. I had hoped to have my wildlife area ready to plant but all the South Texas rain put a damper on my plants.

My greenhouse an hr away has some nice bananas but they've outgrown their small containers ( think 1 gallon).

Ive planted about 35 where i live and look for new spots. THey are being planted only about 2 ft apart - I want a jungle. I will never plant 450 so have started transplanting them into 2-3 gallon containers - hopefully that will keep them ok through the fall or winter. Actually HOW LONG will it be before they become rootbound???

What are the signs on the plant when its become too rootbound?

JoeS475

In the summer I find they become rootbound very quickly. My Raja Puri and Maurelli have been repotted 2x this summer since new. The last time was 1 month ago and already there are roots coming out the bottom of the pots.

Signs of being rootbound I've found is that leaves stop getting bigger and the plant sort of exists without much vertical growth.

On one I had as an experiment last summer, I left a DC in a tiny pot. First it pushed all the perlite to the top of the soil as the roots crowded the pot. Then the whole plant, soil and all, started raising up by itself out of the pot as there was no more room. But that was extreme...

A good test to see if it is rootbound (if the plant is established) is to wait until the soil is pretty dry, hold the pseudostem and gently lift up. The whole mass of roots will likely come out of the pot, pot shaped, without much trouble. You will find very little soil.

Also check the holes under the pot to see if roots are coming out. If so it may be rootbound.

My 2 cents...

~Joe

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Gabe15

When bananas are rootbound, they continue to grow leaves but don't really get any taller, and as mentioned the corms will start to push out of the containers eventually. However, if you plan on planting them in the ground eventually (doesn't have to be anytime soon), being rootbound doesn't really matter. If you plan on storing them, keeping them rootbound is actually a good idea in my opinion because they will not die if they have good care and they will stay small and easy to handle. You can't really overpot a banana because its roots want to spread out so much (with bananas, area is much more important than depth), so no matter what size container you put it in, it will become rootbound.

Also, you may want to increase your planting depth, even if you aren't growing for fruit, planting them that close will eventually end up as lots of competition and probably will not look as nice. Since bananas form mats, planting them even 8-10ft apart will eventually make a dense stand. If you want it super dense and impossible to penetrate, I wouldn't go closer than 5ft, but whatever makes you happy

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.