Wow... thanks for the picture. I lived in the Medina/Strongsville area for a while so I know how bitterly cold it gets there in the winter.

By the way,... I checked the weather history for Akron Ohio for last winter and the coldest temperature there was -4F on 1/28/05. Pretty impressive.

-Todd

That was negative (-4F) degrees. My above post displayed goofy so I thought I'd restate that.

Pretty impressive! The South side of house helps -- also, good drainage. Here's my basjoo banana 'grove' in Virginia topping out at around 13 feet tall.

{{gwi:418093}}

Wow! That's amazing! I guess I'll worry a lot less about my basjoos over the winter now, although I still never expect to see flowers! How tall is his blooming plant?

I've seen some 20'+ trees flowering around Portland, Oregon.

In zone 8 Oregon you don't have to worry about protecting the pseudostems. So they get HUGE! You can grow some nice windmill palms out there too.

The stem that bloomed in the group was not more than 7 foot tall. Of course all that growth occured since spring and we had a huge snow storm (18") on April 24th.

I am right in there with CACO with the numbers, but just in one grove. I still consider and refer bananas as perennials, not trees, but hey, that is just me.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:418089}}

fredsbog--- That is amazing... I've never heard of a basjoo blooming in the area... Does he live right in the city, or outside of the city (which can make all the difference in that -4F) I'm in Canton and mine is planted against the foundation facing the Southeast. It's only been in the ground 3 years though... It's a nice clump, but due to the very dry summer is only about 6 or 7ft. It was closer to 8 or 9ft last year. I'm going to protect the psuedostem better this year and see what happens... That's awesome...