A banner year for bananas
Long ago I was intrigued by a story about a man who had an enormous banana tree waving its giant leaves in a Midwestern front yard. How could this possibly be? It turned out that the man dug up the corm every fall, stored it in his basement and replanted it in spring, after which it grew rapidly in response to warmth and abundant moisture.
It seemed like an impractical dream until I heard of Musa basjoo, the Japanese fiber banana. M. basjoo, which was first described growing in Japan’s Ryuku islands, is actually native to the Sichuan region in southern China and has been cultivated for cloth and paper manufacture as well as for ostensible medicinal use. My initial planting in central Ohio lasted for several seasons until being shaded out by surrounding shrubs. A replacement grew into a sizable clump thriving over many seasons and surviving winter lows down to at least -10F.
M. basjoo is a rapid grower, attaining 14 feet in height or more during a single growing season after being killed to the ground by freezing temperatures. Culture is simple - give it as much sun as possible, keep the ground moist and fertilize regularly. A balanced or high-nitrogen soluble fertilizer works well. A location sheltered from strong winds helps keep banana foliage from becoming tattered, a notable problem in warm climates where plants freeze back late or not at all. Flowering and fruiting are uncommon outside the lower South or similarly mild areas. In any case the fruit are said to be inedible due to scant pulp and many seeds. The luxuriant tropical effect is what makes M. basjoo such a fine ornamental.
Since branching out into bananas I’ve discovered several other kinds that lend themselves to striking border effects. Musa sikkimensis comes from high-altitude forests in the northeast Himalayas, and as you’d expect shows considerable resistance to cold, while seemingly a bit less hardy than M. basjoo. My two clumps were grown from seed. They emerge 10-14 days later in spring than M. basjoo, in early May here in central Kentucky. M. sikkimensis has not been quite as vigorous for me, topping out at about 10 feet. There is a variant of the species, ‘Bengal Tiger’ that has purplish stripes on its leaves and red-purple leaf undersides.
Musa itinerans ‘Mekong Giant’ is a hardy banana with an attitude. It sprouts in spring later than M. basjoo, but makes up for it with rampant growth, catching up to M. basjoo by late in the season and potentially exceeding it in height. ‘Mekong Giant’ has the unusual and disconcerting habit among ornamental bananas of being a rampant horizontal spreader. I discovered that quality this past spring, when after two years in the ground, ‘Mekong Giant’ decided it was time to strike out for new pastures. Its wandering rhizomes sent up shoots up to six feet out from the main clump. These can be dug up and replanted or composted according to your inclinations.
All of these varieties have proven hardy through at least two winters in my zone 6B garden. On the experimental side, I’m trialing two more bananas - Musella lasiocarpa and Ensete glaucum.
M. lasiocarpa a.k.a. the Chinese dwarf banana or golden lotus banana, is a native of China’s Yunnan province and typically grows to about six feet tall. Its main attribute apart from tropical foliage is a striking yellow flower in favored climates (supposedly developing in its second year of growth), again with inedible fruit. It’s rated as hardy in zone 7 on south, but since gardeners have reported success up into zone 6 I have hopes for it here.
Ensete glaucum, the snow banana is considered a relative of Musa or an actual member of the clan, Musa nepalensis depending on how taxonomists are currently mangling the nomenclature. It grows rapidly from seed, which is how I came by it, and develops a blue-green thickened trunk base. E. glaucum reached about 7 feet in height in its first season here and is said to grow up to 15 feet in cultivation. At best it is rated hardy to zone 7B (minimum temp. about 5F). We’ll see if a thick layer of mulch and good drainage will allow it to overwinter in central KY.
This brings us to the subject of wintertime protection. A safe although laborious method when dealing with bananas of whose hardiness you’re unsure is to cut off all the foliage and part of the pseudostem in fall before frost, dig up and pot the corm in a large tub and place it in cool storage (optimally 40-50F) until spring. Some gardeners use variably elaborate methods in an attempt to preserve the pseudostem of M. basjoo, which is relatively vulnerable to cold since pseudostems are not woody but are basically water-rich columns comprised of rolled-up leaf bases. Enterprising sorts construct chickenwire cages to surround the plant, which are then filled with leaves or straw and the whole thing covered with layers of burlap. If you’re really determined (or demented), C9 Xmas lights or another artificial heat source can be employed. Such methods are aimed at ensuring a bigger plant the next season and possibly encouraging flowering and even fruiting. My one attempt at a chicken wire enclosure with M. basjoo was unsuccessful, and since the plant so rapidly regrows from the ground in spring, extensive protection seems unnecessary. Confession: I’m also too lazy for such fussing. Instead, I simply let hard frosts and freezes kill the foliage. The pseudostem eventually collapses, leaving a pile of degenerating plant matter which, when you add a foot or more of straw mulch, protects underground portions of the clump through extreme winter cold. Many growers of hardy bananas tidy up their clumps by cutting back pseudostems to a foot or less and removing dead leaves before mulching, but my possibly unscientific theory is that they’re sacrificing a degree of winter protection by doing so.
I start to uncover bananas by degrees in spring depending on the extended weather forecast, generally starting in early April. Mulch can be re-piled atop tender shoots if freezes threaten.
Sources for bananas:
A few commercial sellers offer seeds, usually of Ensete species. Seeds can also be found via eBay and Amazon sellers. I’ve had mixed success with the eBay route and with smaller seed houses - check online reviews carefully.
Local garden centers and even home improvement stores commonly offer potted specimens of Musa basjoo. I found M. itinerans ‘Mekong Giant’ at a small area nursery.
Mail order. Nurseries that ship Musa include Logee’s in Danielson, CT, Brian’s Botanicals near Louisville, KY and Plant Delights in Raleigh, NC. The Garden Watchdog is a very helpful resource for checking out online sellers.