Portland banana tree produced fruit in the Brooklyn neighborhood. I don’t know if they ultimately ripened, but it seemed like an interesting anomaly that people on this forum might appreciate. I used to grow fruiting bananas in the Bay Area so I’ve been looking for specimens to grow up here in the Willamette Valley. Though I still think it’s a long shot.
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Grot: I was just curious; thimbleberry plants in the Oregon countryside (and quite a few plants on the Reed College campus) fruit sparsely, when harvesting in the wild it has taken me hundreds of linear feet of picking per pint of berries.
The Portland banana plant article above is dated late August 2020 and there is no mention of that plant having mature, usable fruits. The bloom is remarkable. I wonder how long it takes from banana bloom to fully-sized fruit.
Where I am in Washington I’ve also noticed some patches are unproductive. I know of one spot near me where they are very productive, but I don’t know yet if they are productive due to genetic variance, growing conditions or both. I have a clone started from that colony so that I may further evaluate since it’s one of the best tasting locally native fruits.
The productive patch happens to have good sun exposure and lots of soil moisture.
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Yes, sometimes a sunny, damp pocket of thimbleberry plants will have more berries. There is actually a small commercial harvest of these in northern Michigan. This is a plant that is browsed by deer; I have found browse-ruined roadside stretches in the Gifford Pinchot that were previously pickable.
Banana: Apparently the common PNW landscape banana will flower and produce inedible fruit. Rare Plant Research near New Era sells a heavily-fruiting variety, but they keep their tropical exotics in greenhouses year-round.
I used in live in NE Seattle on a steep east-facing slope on damp but fast draining soil.
Had a nice patch of volunteer thimbleberries on the north side. They were previous browsed by deer and not super productive but ornamental. OTOH, maybe they were more productive than I knew with all my winged friends around. They received morning sun only which seemed to suit them. Stinging nettles grew up hill from them.
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Would love to have a dwarf crabapple if it stays true to fenceline form.
take care, doug
Hi Doug,
I’m planning to get a stool bed of the dwarf fenceline crabapple started so I can propagate it on its own roots. Once that’s done I’d like to distribute copies for evaluation in other locations to verify if it continues to grow true to type. I’d like to evaluate whether it would work as a dwarf rootstock too because the original has a very robust trunk despite its overall small stature. Would be cool if it was sturdy enough to not need steaking when used as a dwarfing rootstock…
Anyways, it’ll probably be a couple years before I have enough started on their own roots to begin an evaluation, but I’ll try to remember to post on here when it’s time.
I am the owner of the Brooklyn Banana plant in Portland. As noted, the flower and fruit grew over the summer of 2020. The fruit didn’t grow much larger than shown in image (maybe 2" long) and never ripened. I don’t know much about the particular variety of banana, a neighbor gave it to us, and told us that it might flower.
Our observation from our current plants and others we owned in warmer climates is that bananas take two growing seasons to flower and fruit. I think the PNW winters are usually too cold for the trunks to last through the freezes. This particular trunk lasted through the winter and flowered in the summer. We have seen small flower bud in our trees before, but never fully developed flowers or fruit. The fruit and tree stopped growing in late fall. Eventually it shriveled and we cut the trunk down. New stalks are growing.
One additional point is that the banana is close to our dryer vent, which may increase the average temperature just enough to keep it alive through the winter.
Let me know if there are questions you have.
jason
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Thank you for the update, and welcome to the forum! That’s too bad about the fruit not ripening, but it’s to be expected I think.
I’m trying to grow Musa velutina because it’s supposed to flower on first year growths so overwintering the above ground parts wouldn’t be necessary. The fruits are seedy, but the pulp between is alleged to be palatable. Hopefully my seedlings have survived the winter…
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Jason,
Thanks for the banana update and welcome to the group.
Mark
P.S. I assume this means you got my message.
Mt. Vernon Winter Fruit Day this Saturday. Scions and rootstocks available.
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I haven’t tried M. velutina, but I have seedlings of Helen’s hybrid, M. thomsonii, and M. balbisiana, but they all melted to the ground in December. Time will tell whether they sprout new growth. I have others that were in the greenhouse for that freeze but left out for the milder one a few weeks ago, and their leaves are fried but the pseudostems seem alive still:
Those will go in the ground soon probably.
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Those look to be handling the cold pretty well. I was trying to get M. × ‘Hellen’s Hybrid’ and M. thomsonii going too, but could only find them in seed form. I’ve tried germinating banana seeds a number of times now and so far M. velutina are the only ones I’ve ever gotten to sprout (even then it’s a small number compared to how many I planted).
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I had low germination rates as well, with a total of 6 seedlings out of 30 seeds. I documented the germination here:
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I don’t know how much it means to you, but if you are motivated you could probably build a crude enclosure to mitigate the cold. The 8b zone is so close it wouldn’t take much. Citrus is in a similar situation here. I was able to overcome some of the cold by planting against a south facing wall and building a polycarbonate cover that extend off the wall. I only have to drape a tarp around the enclosure on a few nights a year. The rest of the time they are completely exposed to the elements. I have had excellent results with this system. Of course, I only grow the hardiest varieties like yuzu, satsuma, and kumquat. I also have a meyer lemon, but I keep that in a pot and move it the greenhouse for many winter nights.
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Right, this is what drives us!!!
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Banana: RPR is selling a ‘Gran-nain’.
https://www.rareplantresearch.com/musa-gran-nain.html
Their greenhouses will be open for touring in May, invitation only
(per the homepage).
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It’s so frustrating, especially when I go just a few hours south and see how that few degrees makes a huge difference.
changes in latitude, changes in attitude
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