Greenhouse ‘Nanas in 7b

Was recently gifted a 3’ Banana tree . I’ve no idea what variety it is, but my friend has them in his yard. They are perennials in 7b( die back and regrow next year). His are about 12’ tall in his yard.

Question: I plan to grow in a very large pot, move into my greenhouse in the fall before hard frost. Can the tree be grown laterally? My green house is only 9’ tall at apex.

Or am I doomed to fail at this crazy :crazy_face: idea of growing fruit in 7b?

I’m growing banana in my GH. But have about 14 feet to play with. There are varieties that could be held to 9 feet. The three varieties I have would be a tight fit at 9 feet. The step ladder is 6 ft.

If in ground, not a pot, 9 ft would be close but then growth might be more. My pot is about 70 gallon.

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Wow, the fruit forming looks so rad. I wish I had the space for a greenhouse to try this !

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This is fantastic!
Thank you for sharing.

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Do you keep in the greenhouse year round?
Any idea how to identify the variety by leaf or stalk structure? I’m scouring the internet, but not much about growing in zone 7b

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Sounds like your friend has musa basjoo which is inedible

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I couldn’t move it when it was in a 30 gallon. No way it’s moving at 70 gal. I do have two in 25 gal fabric pots. They are nearly as big as the pup in my big pot. They’ll fruit in the next year, I hope. Bananas sure make a big pot look small in a hurry.

My GH is near 90 highs for 8-9 months. With a chill cycle for stone fruit in winter. The banana don’t like media much below 60F. The one with fruit lost every leaf last winter. But popped back and grew about 20 leaves before flowering the first of August.

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Are you sure that variety is inedible?

I found a few links to purchase this variety and all says edible :woman_shrugging:

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You can eat small rocks, grass, pennies, and anything else you can fit in your mouth. :grin:Musa bajoo has very small bananas that aren’t sweet and are mostly large, hard seeds if I’m remembering correctly.

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It’s not poisonous but its nickname is the Japanese fiber banana. Nobody eats them and for good reason.

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I had bananas in zone 6a in Colorado (potted). Moved to 8a recently.

The varieties you want for short plants + quick fruiting times:
Kokopo
Veinte Cohol

:grin:

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I know it’s nitpicking, but technically bananas are not trees, they just somewhat resemble trees. It’s a banana plant.

I think you could successfully grow it at an angle, but you’d need to support the weight. I assume your greenhouse is heated to prevent a freeze?

I would say take any claims from sellers with many grains of salt. My understanding is basjoo (which is almost certainly what you have) will not fruit at all unless pollinated, and when it is pollinated it has tiny fruit that are almost entirely filled with large gravel-like seeds. The small amount of edible flesh around the seeds has a very mild flavor and isn’t particularly sweet.

My own attempts to grow seeded/hardy bananas here in Seattle have mostly failed, though I do still get one Helen’s hybrid that dies back at first frost and then grows again each summer, but it’s never going to fruit. There’s some info about seeded bananas linked from this thread:

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I’ve seen bananas successful in SeaTac, whatever that zone is. Every other year it fruits

No idea what variety it is except it’s a big store type looking one

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I would be EXTREMELY surprised if that is a dessert (seedless) banana, unless they dig up the corm in winter and store it somewhere warm. I have never seen any dessert banana that survives 25°F or so, and we hit that multiple times almost every winter. Even the fastest to fruit cannot do so in a single season here, so it needs to have the p-stem survive at least one winter, maybe two.

Even the allegedly hardy bananas that I’ve grown (Helen’s hybrid, balbisiana, thompsonii) have melted completely at the first hard frost and regrown new pups in spring, or died completely. And I’m in a slightly less cold area than SeaTac due to my proximity to the Salish Sea, my low is usually a degree or two warmer than the official low at SeaTac.

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Dessert as in small seeds like the grocery store ones? If so, it is!

It’s a relative who has it. She doesn’t dig it up or store it. I remember seeing snow on the leaves a few years ago and it being unphased.

I can probably get a pup for you if you want to try it out?

It’s every other year that it fruits and when it does, it’s taller than the house.

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It fruited last year from 2 stalks so it’ll probably fruit again next year. This is all 1 plant

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What’s amazing about that picture is how pristine the leaves are. The wind must never blow more than a gentle breeze. Most banana have leaves that are pretty shredded.

Oh i know :rofl: mine were stripped regularly on Colorado. Had them die back to the ground there (in Colorado Springs) and i thought they were dead so i dug them up and chopped them into pieces, threw them with my potted plants as fertilzer/compost and they began sprouting again. So now i have no idea which bananas i have over here but mine are in recovery except the new ones i just bought. Gonna ask the family for one of those banana trees later on this year or maybe next growing season. Not sure if i want the responsibility now or later.

We get wind but nothing damaging except maybe twice a year in SeaTac.

I know another person who grow bananas in ground that’s also trying to do a small farm operation in western Washington. I’ve since lost their contact info though. Last i heard was about 2 years ago.

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Grocery store ones are seedless, not small seeds. The little flecks you see are not seeds, just “placeholders” for where seeds would have formed.

It got down to 15°F this January during a 6-day freeze where the highs were often below freezing. There is no banana that could survive that, period. Even basjoo pseudostems were killed back to ground level on all the ornamental bananas I know about in this area. There’s no way that banana survived that without significant protection. So what did they do to protect it?

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Trust me, nothing.

My family is a plant and leave alone type except for me. I’m the exception cause i like to feed my plants but they’re not my plants. Maybe the warmth from the house kept it from freezing?

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