WOW, thanks Millet. Why did that plant die? Do you want a Ice Cream Banana plant? Let me know before it gets too big to ship LOL.
Now I have to learn all there is to know about growing bananas

Patty, all banana "dies" after they bloom and fruited. But technically the banana plant did not die, the life of the banana is in the corm. Once a pseudostem has matured, has bloomed, that particular stem will be spent, but the main corm will shoot out more pups as replacement. Through time, the pups will develop their own corm, and the whole clump becomes a banana mat. In some cultivars, you need well develop mats to produce lots of fruits, and in others you will have to control the mat, thin them out, cut down the pups so that more photosynthesis is spent in fruit production and not in vegetative mat formation.

Patty the lower trunk on my Ice cream is wider than a 7 gal pot. I just had a look, I think it may be ready to fruit. Will let you know in a few days.

Joe, I certainly don't want to be argumentative. There are several "Cavendish" type cultivars, including 'Williams', 'Robusta', and others, with wide variation in plant and fruit size. However, the picture in the Logee's catalog is precisely identical to the true, correctly named 'Dwarf Cavendish', a cultivar I've known and grown for nearly 40 years. The tree can be bigger and the fruit slightly bigger, in open soil in a good climate, but this is what I'd expect in a pot in Connecticut. I suppose different cultivars may be grown under a name in different areas, but throughout much (most?) of the banana-growing world, this is 'Dwarf Cavendish'.
Malcolm

I've also grown Williams Hybrid Banana. It is also a plant that does not get excessively high (10-12-ft.), so it can be grown inside a greenhouse. In my view, Williams Hybrid is a better looking plant with more graceful arching leaves, giving a nicer tropical look. - Millet

Malcolm, the point I want to get across is that it is the plant and its performance in a pot that is more important to me rather than its name at the moment.

there's a lot of to do in the naming of bananas:

http://www.plantnames.unimelb.edu.au/Sorting/Musa.html


Just like citruses, naming of bananas are also chaotic. I think for the reasons that I suspect below, don't take this as argument:

can't blame anyone for the current chaos, plus that the less knowledgeable propagators often coming up with their own names and the marketing group thrown all into this melee.

One of the major sources of naming chaos is our perception of what constitutes a cultivar and the lack of international standards for naming of complex interspecific hybrids. In most cases, we have been at a loss when it comes to naming hybrids. Most bananas are hybrids, in fact almost all of the edible bananas are complex polyploid hybrids originating from the acuminata and balbisiana groups. But we are able to propagate these hybrids vegetatively and they would come true to type and thus somehow fit some rudimentary definition of a species but definitely distinct cultivars. How does one name them taxonomically these polyploid hybrids of M. acuminata and M. balbisiana? We have no problem with acuminata alone nor the balbisiana alone including their sport mutations but with complex hybrids, such as a hypothetical one that I concocted by hybridizing the regular acuminata primitive with an existing AB hybrid then backcrossing that with balbisiana type, shall we name them "Musa acuminata x (balbisiana x acuminata) x balbisiana 'Joe banana'"? If you are not sure about that, I can be sure that I will be able to propagate it vegetatively if I ever come up with it.

Amazingly, the same chaotic sientific naming of Citrus species has come to light also. Latest DNA analysis would show that all known citruses can be traced back to only about 3 species and in fact almost all of the commercially grown citruses are in fact hybrids of the three citrus species. One thing peculiar about citruses that has fooled our "taxonomic" forefathers is that most of them would come true to type when propagated by seeds, tricking our early growers that they are distinct species when in fact they are really hybrids. Most citruses have polyembryonic seeds with prodominantly nucellar embryos. The nucellar embryos are like a folded in cellular-tissues of the female parent that has reverted into its most juvenile form. Thus when you plant these, even if the citruses were pollinated by another, it would be hard to look for a hybrid, most likely you will get the true to type. Citruses as well as bananas can hybridize naturally, and some of these natural hybrids will outgrow the other embryos aand can then produce true to type hybrids in the wild, tricking our early taxonomic workers for separate species, thus we have chaotic naming as well. With genetic testing, it may help resolve these issues but I believe it will be more questions than answers, more chaos than order, until the scientific community knows how to deal with the proper naming of complex hybrids.

Todate we even have complex interspecific hybrids such pluots, peach cots, apriums, plum and cherry hybrids, what would be the proper scientific name for these when most often it is not a simple 50-50% genetic intermix and could span several species mix. I haven't ran any scientific articles discussing these complex hybrids as separate species. And we now have genetically engineered crops where we splice a gene from one organism to another and could end up in bananas.

Here's one of the best works I've come across when it comes to cataloging the bananas cultivars, their names, very extensive article:

http://www.inibap.org/pdf/IN010189_en.pdf

Nothing else beat them (http://www.inibap.org) for the best available info on banana cultivars and their names.

You miss the important point that I mentioned, as it is the plant and its performance that I would like to test and not care for the name at the moment. The name can be resolved later when the naming chaotic dust have settled. Meanwhile I will be happy to share the info of the actual performance of the plant which is more important than the name at the moment.

Before anyone says this, no, I've not gone bananas. Just been there, done that, and so am sharing.

Millet if you have any extra pups id like to buy one from you .. plus shipping of corse..

ok i cut one of my bananas down.. let me think maybe 3-4 months ago it got sick the stem went black so i asked Joe.. Now the Rhisome has pups but there not comming up ?

should i fertilize or not ?

should i water ? im scared if i do that Maybe the water will rott the roots and the rhisome..


PS my Thousand Fingers is comming along nicely out side not freezing so yes its cold hardy .. will bring her in in the winter though .. its about 30 here but last winter we got really cold . some people say to put it in a dry dark spot Over winter .. any ideas on this ? Tammy

Tammy,

I will post this link on a separate thread so that people will easily find it.

Your bananas can bear fruit too! Here's how you should do it in your zone:

http://www.bananas.org/showthread.php?t=310

Joe

Awesome thanks Joe Ill go check out that link...

Ill go try and take a pic of the banana tree im having some trouble with .
its my Ice Cream Banana she is 5 yrs old Never have i had problems with her befor and my Musa well it is soft rhisome so im thinking dead ..

Talk soon Im gonna have to get more now i know better then to trust the weather normally we just get 30 degrees for winter but this last winter it got to 23f Ouch huh all my citrus where brought in my house was ok but Kitchen had the best light so walking room only ...

Tammy