All this talk about banana's has me wondering and reading. Is there a variety that can be container grown? I have read about the Super Dwarf Cavendish and that folks have not had a lot of luck, when they have to bring it indoors in the winter or for that matter getting it to fruit. Is there any variety that I might try??? Joan

A picture is worth a thousand words



Musa Ladyfinger



Double 'mahoi'
Any of the dwarf varieties will do.
I am planning to put on pots the following:
dwarf orinoco- hardy
dwarf Brazilian- hardy
dwarf cavendish- poor
Double mahoi- don't know maybe medium since originally came from Hawaii
Rajapuri- hardy
Calif gold- hardy

Thanks B. I just gotta do it, is one place or other best to order plants from??

Benny
Looks like you favor the Orinoco, so if you had to choose only one which would you recommend as far as ease to grow, hardiness and fruit taste?
Karl

If you can't find it through your local nursery you can try EBay and the best place to buy them is I can't recall the name of the store but Joe Real knows. It maybe a little higher but you will get your money's worth. At Ebay, buying there is a gamble. Don't get tempted to buy the $5.95 kind. They are cultured bananas that is only 5" to 8 inch high.
Buy a pup. You can save 2 to 4 years time to fruit.
Karl:
From the input of the other people who have experienced growing bananas I would recommend dwarf orinoco.
A lot of people recommend this because it is one of the hardiest bananas and shortest time to fruit- 14 months from pup.
One said that of all the hardy bananas he kept in his garage, all perish except his dwarf orinoco. Also the height is only 5 feet to fruit.

If you wish to grow a variety that will produce full size commercial bananas, and a variety that does well in containers, grow a Chiquita (Grand Nain). The plant will be larger than the dwarf varieties, but not overly so. Does well in a room with good light. A Grand Nain will fruit on the 15th or 16th leaf, making the plant approximately 7 feet tall and 5 or 6 feet wide. It should be planted in a 15 gallon container. It normally produces a couple hundred bananas, depending on how well it is grown (how happy the banana is). Bananas are much like Citrus, in that they stop growing when temperatures fall below 55F.

Karl:
There are two types of orinoco bananas:
One is the regular orinoco that grows from 16 to 20 feet and the
Dwarf orinoco 5 to 7 feet.
Heavy bearer, Good eating quality zone 7b
I plan to keep my bananas in pots without any heat help from me.
I grew them before in my covered patio and stayed green all winter long. But I did not know the kind I had.

I found Joe Real's input:
"www.going-bananas.com would usually sell with the correct cultivars. A little bit more expensive than others but their plants are top quality. Avoid the eBay tissue cultured plantlets like the plague. I've had many mislabeled cultivars from those cheapo plantlets and knew only after 3 or 4 years. With growing-bananas, so far they are 100% correctly labeled."

I have a double Mahoi which is a good eating banana & only get to about 7 ft. Good for pot growing (it's just over 1' tall now).

the size of the fruits will depend on how large storage your mass of corms have, how large are your stems, the number of leaves, and the effective hours of fruit filling conditions and photosynthetic activities during the season. for California, temperatures lower than 50 deg F, that is zero fruit filling activity, anything above 95 deg F, also a zero fruit filling activity. that means very very few hours.

the number of leaves that the banana produce is not a very reliable method of predicting its blooming time.

Joe:
You are telling me.
I have several type of bananas that kept putting out leaves for over two years and none of them set fruit. Oh, yes, they grew tall too. Very good looking bananas with big sturdy pseudostems and big leaves.
I just started replacing them with known varieties.

Joe, you are probably correct concerning the fruiting time of bananas and the leaf count. I am now on my third Chiquita, all grown in the greenhouse. All have fruited on the 15th leaf, and all have been grown under the same conditions. I agree with you a lot depends on the environment and care that the plant receives. I am also presently growing a Mysore, and a Williams Hybrid and a Black Hawaiian. - Millet