I also have 4 potted bananas in my house. I have them in the basement, which has only 5 small glass block windows, but I also have some cheap flourescent grow lights on them. It doesn't seem very bright, certainly not half as bright as natural outdoor sunlight. Anyway, I have an ensete Maurelli and an ensete red stripe. Both of them are growing much faster than they were outdoors in 60 degree weather, and their leaves are much larger. I heard they respond well to grow lights, but this is a pleasant surprise.

On the other hand, I have 2 musa basjoo as well, but they haven't grown at all. If anything, they're shrinking, absorbing the oldest leaves, but they aren't replacing them with new ones.

Do you think the basjoo are slowly dying, or will they come around? Do they need brighter light, or do basjoo just do terrible indoors?

I don't have grow lights ... just sunlight coming in the patio doors or through the front window, where my Zebrina is.

I don't know if Basjoo respond differently, but would suspect that they should do as well as your others. If they are not, try adding some top mulch and pour in some of that nitrogen rich fertilizer, the blue crystal stuff. Bananas are very hungry plants and if your Basjoo have depleted the soil in their pots, you could be seeing the results of that. They are also tall. How much of that grow light do they actually get? The difference between defused light in shade and the darkness of a cave-like basement that is only radiated by grow lights is worth considering.

Basjoo are said to be one of the most cold hardy Bananas and they grow them outdoors, as far north as Vancouver, Canada, here along the West Coast. That's why Basjoo have a strong following and demand. They really should be doing just as well as your others. Keep in mind though that Ensetes are NOT true Bananas ( Ensete vs. Musa ), though related. Your Basjoo may need something that your Ensetes can tolerate doing without in that basement.

Else, though I figure that different species of Banana may well come from and tolerate different environmental conditions, I don't know how this applies to direct sunlight vs. shade. And I haven't quite got around to finding out whether some originate from and grow better in open range or under forest canopy. It would be interesting to know. There are of course, Banana that grow in lowlands and those that grow high on the slopes of mountainous regions, such as the Himalayas where not only lighting, but temperature differences are factors in their native environments. And some Ensetes are more arid in their native environments.

Check this out ...

{{gwi:423423}}

Notice how big and dark the most recent leaves are?

And the same is true of the Zebrinas which I recently separated ...

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Except, the Zebrinas leaves don't get dark.

I can only theorize that in shade, the symbiotic chloroplast helpers in the banana's leaves do not suffer as high a mortality rate as they would in direct sun and so, the leaves grow larger and further, get darker green.

I think what's happening here is that the plants have lower available light for photosynthesis, and as a reaction to this increases their photosynthetic surface area (larger leaves) in order to compensate and prevent death. In my four years of plant science classes I've never come across anything indicating death of normal chloroplasts due to full sun (Unless it was accompanied by low temperatures-this in bananas is called "Autumn radiation damage"). Chloroplasts do, however, play a role in programmed cell death in plants.

I believe the darkening effect you have shown is present on the Superdwarf and not the Zebrina due to the fact that Superdwarf doesn't like full sun in the first place; it's allegedly susceptible to sunburn (and autumn radiation damage), whereas the Zebrina needs higher light levels in order to photosynthesize efficiently (It has more anthocyanins and less chlorophyll in the leaves than normal-hence the red barring typical of the subspecies).

Thus, they both put on longer leaves (For more photosynthesis in lower light) but the Superdwarf puts on healthier looking leaves and the Zebrina puts on chlorotic leaves.

My "Ice Cream" Banana behaves like the Super Dwarf, except that in shade, it produces zebra bars on leaves like the zebrina. Pups have zebra bars on the "Ice Cream" banana, but it follows that this observation follows what the main plant is doing because they ( the pups ), even when outdoors in sunlight are shaded by the main plant.

It's very interesting that the bars were not produced by the "Ice Cream" banana when it was in full sun.

I have this "Ice Cream" Banana pup that has a new leaf coming out that is already twice the size of the previous one which was somewhat large as the banana had been moved indoors as the previous one was coming up.

{{gwi:423425}}

If you go back to my first photo in this thread on November 18th, you can see this new leaf just poking up. So in 6 days, it's come to this.

I'm convinced that shade does make a difference in growth.

It's quite remarkable.

The longer leaves are from the plants stretching in search of sunlight. I've noticed that my stands will stretch when not thinned properly. At some point your plants will stop growing and become sick if you don't provide any light but continue to water them. They will also become prone to insect attacks. Bananas need sunlight!!

It never fails to amaze me what organic molecules bound up in protein cell walls exhibit in response to stimuli. Most folks tend to believe that plants are inanimate for the most part, except for growth. Yet flowers open, close and follow the sun like little moving radar dishes, leaves fold or curl and some plants recoil to touch. The thing plants lack is the more complex capacity to respond which we find in fauna and call sentience. And they are damn slow about their movements, blushes and other responses. It's often hard to tell why they respond and what they are responding to. The 'nastic' responses aren't always easy to peg, let alone the 'pathologic' or illness responses.

I'm not the guy with 4 years of plant science like Huey, but it does seem odd to me that a plant should extend more energy at a time when its metabolic ability to produce energy is taxed, ie. the accelerated growth of larger and in the case of the "Ice Cream" and "Super Dwarf", darker leaves in shade.

I questioned for some time his statement about anthocyanins producing the zebra bars on the zebrinas as it seemed odd to me that the zebra bars were being produced on the "Ice Cream" banana only now, precisely as a response to the diminished light of partial shade. If the Zebrina lives naturally in full sun, then why does the "Ice Cream" banana produce the bars when subjected to shade? There seems to be a contradiction here. Do Autumn leaves turn color due to reduced light as the Solar azimuth increases or due to cold or both? Are the zebra bars a similar response?

I don't think my banana are in danger of illness. They do get light. It is just not the full on direct UV hard light. Instead they get the diffuse reflected light that comes in the Patio windows. Granted, the intensity of this light is much less than the direct light, especially at the current seasonal low azimuth of the Sun. It must be worse for folks with Banana farther north and their tactics of overwintering their corms in storage may be very necessary. Those folks also get more cloud cover than we get in BKF. Cloud cover is rare here, although as it gets colder, we may see Tule fog that hangs on the ground till late morning or longer. I have developed however, a great appreciation for the harshness of solar radiation. Despite our protective magnetic, atmospheric and ozone planetary shield, the natural summer radiation levels are indeed harmful and destructive to those amazing organic molecules I referred to above. There may be some plants that require the full dosage, but I think some shade, even from cloud cover is often the means for healing or even better health. I grant you, that certain pathogens are better able to survive in shade and those, fungis, molds, viruses etc., may be causal to plant illness and that should rightfully be a concern. But I think the metabolic needs will be met in my overwintering scheme.

I think I can get by here in BKF with my current strategy of overwintering inside. The shortest day of the year is less than 30 days away, December 21st. After that we may get colder, but will start seeing longer days again. Grow lights are an option if I think I need them.

I am committed to continue as I have started and should things get ugly, well ... I suppose in any case, I'll both learn from the experience and be able to provide folks in this forum a useful example.

Fingers are crossed.

Bearstate-I was thinking about the red barring on the ice cream banana, trying to think of why that would happen (I have some ice creams and haven't seen that happen before) so I looked at the photo you provided, and I think I know what's going on with that one-I think it may actually be some other cultivar, possibily a dwarf cavendish or a gran nain, both of which exhibit red barring on young and shade grown growth. The reason I say this is because of the petiole. The short, broadly winged, clasping petiole is an identifying feature of AAA genomic banana plants (a group which includes the cavendishes), whereas an ABB plant (The group including Bluggoe and IceCream) has a longer, less winged non-clasping petiole. I think you may have gotten a mislabeled or misrepresented plant. Now, I could be wrong, I just wanted to run that by you.

Huey my friend,

This is much more interesting than one might think then.

Here's another photo, emphasizing the petiole of certain leaves on the very same plant ...

{{gwi:423427}}

Here's another shot ...

{{gwi:423429}}

BTW: Notice how damn big that new leaf is on the pup, now that it is unfurled.

As you can see, the critter when purchased from Home Depot had a couple very long extended leaves with long petioles. It had at the time a couple shorted leaves too, with winged petioles. I suspect it grew much longer leaves in the environment where it was sown and raised, later shifting its pattern after being delivered to Home Depot.

I find your mention of the genetic banana groups interesting and did some searching on the web. This only made things go from interesting to confusing. It seems that there have been some very ancient seed ancestors to many of today's Banana varieties and without record, breeding and hybridization have produced many others which are identified not so much by features as by 'genetic' trail, ie. the groups, AA, AAA, AAAA, AB ABB and so forth.

Naming of Banana is even more confusing as there are different names in different regions and binomial or latin nomanclature seems dropped for many hybrids.

One outfit in Texas for example lists the Ice Cream Banana as Musa x paradisiaca "Ice Cream" Java Blue. The Java Blue is in the mean time cousined to the Bluggoe, but has origins in Indonesia, but with a specific nativity to Fiji and/or Hawaii.

I could find no good references to whether the barring may or may not occur in the species as most descriptions were limited to the fruit. But you are correct; it is not an Ice Cream Banana. I found a label on the pot from Home Depot that labels it as a 'Musa Dwarf Cavendish'. They had tagged it as an Ice Cream Banana when I bought it. It doesn't matter to me, a dwarf Cavendish is fine.

To help confuse you and others, follow the link provided.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sorting Musa Names and getting confused