I bought a Dwarf cavendish at HD last week, it is about 5 ft tall, but the main stem and leaf stems are red-- is that normal? They had larger DCs there that were the normal green -- they were just about 3 times the priice.

I mail ordered a rajapuri, but have not gotten it yet.

Wal-Mart had some small plants (about 1 ft) for just $4, but no variety name-- just "musa".

Mine has red on the leaves but as they get older the red fades.

I'd like to get a Java (ice cream). Sounds yummy!

There is a common Dwarf Cavendish cultivar called Zan Moreno that has red stained leaves. It shares many of the basic characteristics: small size, high quality fruit and cold resistance as does the standard Dwarf Cavendish. The Dwarf Cavendish family has numerous origins since it is a naturally occurring dwarf mutant of taller members of the Cavendish family. The Dwarf Cavendish used to be one of the standard commercial varieties. Good banana, produces lots of medium sized fruit. It is a good thing you did not purchase a wall mart banana and put it next to your Dwarf Cavendish, as the Dwarf Cavendish would have rebelled and died from being in bad company. - Millet

Interesting that there is so much variety in a single cultivar. Mine does not have red on the leaves like Susan's but the stem is about the same color.

I think I will keep it and the Raja Puri in pots for the winter.

funny

Millet, I could not believe that a nursery would go to the trouble of propagating bannans, and even tag the plants without providing the variety. They must have saved a few pennies per truckload being able to use the same lable for multiple varieties. Maybe next time they will have some cheap "citrus" trees.

Just like citruses, there are several thousand banana cultivars. Visit this one and read through some of their files:

http://bananas.bioversityinternational.org/


And almost just like citruses, there are very few pure parent species from which most banana cultivars originated from. Vast majority of today's banana cultivars came from just two pure species, M. acuminata and M. Balbisiana. In citruses, vast majority of cultivars originated from three pure species.

This is dwarf Cavandish from Home Depot the end of April

This is the dwarf Cavandish after repotting twice as of 9/4/07
I think the kids don't really like being used as a measuring stick but they like the Cavandish and the washington navel orange and meyer lemon I got from the HD this past spring.

Any banana that grows 10 feet or less is considered a dwarf. Skeet, many times at Home Depot, and other big box stores all the various varieties of palm trees are just labeled "palm," and many of the plants are simply labeled tropical foliage. - Millet

Millet, I know there are a lot of people that don't care about the variety of various plants,-- they only want a palm or a banana and assume that the nursery has only stocked varieties that will do well in their area ( often a bad assumption especially at the big box stores). But certainly the nursery knows what they are growing. They can't be saving that much by using generic lables, are they doing it to get around trademark and patent laws?

Skeeter, this is just for you!

From GardenWeb citrus forum:

I have a citrus tree (not labelled, I bought it and it just said "citrus"),that has a lot of new growth on it. It just keeps growing and growing, and I'm quite pleased with how it is doing.


Buzzwinder, great photos. The kids look so happy
You've inspired me to move my Musa up to bigger pots.
And I'm so jealous that you got citrus from Home Depot! And in North IL no less!

Thanks Susan, I got my cavandish, meyer lemon and washington navel orange on HDs web site as a project for my step kids and I to maybe work torward a Cub scout or Brownie badge, but when warm weather hit so did summer sports and various other distractions so these babies bacame mine, and I work 70-80 hours a week, but this Cavandish has amazed me with a leaf everyother day or so growth,this is its third pot and it just keeps on truck'n, the kids think it's cool as heck but get a little frumpy when I ask them to pose as a measuring stick, As they are somewhat vertically challenged this summer , The lemon I got was a bush variety and bloomed quick,had one lemon the size of a golf ball on it when it was attacked by invaders from space or those mysterious burglars that put all you toys back in the yard after you worked so hard to put them all away before coming in for the night, but no worries here as it had a flush of growth and once again has some small lemons on it. My only problem is figuring out how handle the cold weather here just south of the cheddar boarder( Wisconsin ) in N. Il.

lol hey watch it, I have only lived in TN about 10 months, before that lived in Racine WI, so not too far from you, I'd guess. There is a lady in Milwaukee I think, on the forum; can't think of her handle but seems very experienced, I think.

Something has begun to munch on the citrus and mangos, I haven't seen anything, although I'm out there looking and fussing over them several times a day. Today I had just finished spraying a mango, they seem to like water mist on their leaves, then suddenly I saw a slow moving monster licking ?? the water off the leaves- looked like a grasshopper/praying mantis combo but hubby said it was a katydid. I've seen cicadas before but guess I've never seen a katydid, ugly big thing!

I'll be careful but yes a diehard bears fans and cubs fan, there are people all over the wonderful state of Wisconsin that grow Citrus and yes even Bananas in the ground, this is my first try at all this but I find it very interesting and hopefully fruitfull , a great learning experience, not sure if I'm allowed to do this, but Bananas.org is a great web site with all the experience and very gracious help you can imagine for Banana info, as well as several people here that have a ton of info and experience with Bananas, this site full of people more than willing to help when you have a question, these are the first things I check when I get on the computer each day, after the wife kids are done that is By the way nice to meet you, but I have to admit I have aliitle zone envy go'in on as you all have a longer growing season than I do, and yes been to Racine several times, about an hour and a half by the county highways, LOVE THE LAND OF CHEESE

Susan-- I can't believe it -- just labled "citrus"-- and somebody bought it!

BTW that lady in Wisconson is Patty-- she has quite a variety of tropical plants growing in Wisconson. I haven't seen her on the forum lately-- hope she weathered all the storms up that way OK.