Do you want to grow bananas for fruit or banana plants? You can grow the fruit but you will need to dig up the plant and store it each winter, replant each spring. They need a long growing season to produce fruit. If you want them for an ornamental plant, musa basjoo is a good choice. It is root hardy here. You can grow other varieties but you will have to bring them in each winter. Some are easy to keep, others are hard to keep. I have a Rojo and an Ele Ele that are difficult to keep even in a greenhouse. They look bad when I bring them outside each spring. Basjoo jumps each spring and is over roof high by fall. I also grow musella lasiocarpa outside. It is a banana relative and is very root hardy. When I removed the leaves from around it this spring, everything covered by leaves was still green.

Thank you for your help. I want the banana for eating only. I would like the hardiest one and maybe one for a container I could bring in for the winter if not I could wrap and mulch it good. I haven't studied or researched anything on them as this is just a thought that come to me yesterday when I realized I was out of bananas. Thank you, CMK44

Go to www.stokestropicals.com. I am not advocating Stokes, I am only advising they have a good online banana catalog with lots of information. Look through the catalog and see if it helps with your decision.

Terry