Hello!

I bought a Java Blue Ice Cream banana and I had some questions. I live in Orange County which should be region 9, although it says region 10 on this site. I do have plants that go up to region 8 that are doing very well.

When I got it I believe it was in a 3 gallon pot (it was so bent up it was hard to tell). I moved it into a slightly larger pot (about 4gallon) and mixed some dirt and vegetable garden soil together, which I think probably isn't the right thing to use but it was what I had. I did put in a lot of dirt from the backyard which seems to drain very well on its own.

It had four leaves left when I got it.

Not long after getting it a leaf was poking out and it looked great. Some of the other leaves browned over time but I'm not cutting them off (I figure they'll give the stem some protection when it gets colder?)

My major worry came when I went outside once and it looked like the leaf in the middle had been bent over by the wind. It didn't looke like it was bending quite the way it's supposed to.

I left it that way to give it time to unravel naturally, but I went outside today and and it doesn't look like it's unfurling well at all. The majority looks fine, but towards the stem it's gotten all ripped up and it looks white (I did have it in the shady spot for about a week, so maybe that did it).

When I lift it up I can see the next leaf growing, too.

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I'm not sure if this is normal and it'll fix itself or if I should be worried. I bought this for my mom to plant in place of a palm tree she wants to get rid of, so I'm trying to take care of it until Christmas at least!

Any advice about what to do is welcome :)