No. A sustained freeze will kill an edible banana plant.
Also, a dwarf banana variety is not necessarily short - just shorter than the standard version of that cultivar. For example, 12' high (including leaves) vs. 16 feet high.
Further, growing a banana indoors full time for fruit is intractable unless you have a transparent ceiling or free electricity or very deep pockets to pay for lighting. Partial daylight through a vertical window isn't going to work.

I lived on the eastern shore of Maryland.If you dig up your plant and keep it in a greenhouse for the winter,replant it in the spring ,you can get fruit...I did. It was wonderful.I do not know what variety it was,nothing special I am sure.It was not a dwarf!! The woman that gave the plant to me dug hers up and wrapped them in newspaper and stored them in her unheated attic and replanted in the spring,she also had fruit in Md

Monzi, there's a difference between "growing a banana tree up here in New England" -- implying outdoors in the ground and "dig up your plant and keep it in a greenhouse for the winter". You'll find people at bananas.org who do the latter. However, it's a whole lot more effort than most online sellers of banana plants would admit to.

We have 2 short banana varieties: Chinese Wok--which is very starchy, almost a plantain, and only gets about 6' tall; and Williams bananas, which are similar to grocery store bananas, and get about 8' tall.

We do get fruit, but are nowhere near New England, so can't help you there.

Amazing! I live in NJ and dug up my banana last fall to bring it inside for the winter, then planted it out again this spring. How many years before you got fruit?

Sandy, what variety is that? What's the overall height of the plant?

Shelma1--did you put your banana in cool storage after you dug it up? Was it difficult to stabilize in the ground again after that?

I'm on the verge of buying both 'Truly Tiny' which is well under 5' overall, and perhaps 'Super Dwarf Cavendish', aka SDC, which hopefully won't hit my 8' ceilings. Both of these produce edible fruit (I hope!).

I'm a newbie to musa, and reports of digging bananas to store them in a cool area are very encouraging. The roots are apparently shallow, and don't seem to resent transplantation/storage.

I have a couple of seedlings of dwarf ornamental m.velutina, also tiny, which is supposed to produce inedible fruit from seed in less than 1 year.

Rick in CT

Rredbbeard@yahoo.com

I simply put my bananas (also dug up the pups) in pots and put them in my sunniest window/sliding door, which unfortunately face east. I never expected them to fruit, I just like how they look. But it would be amazing if they did fruit.

I just bought a truly tiny banana tree. Does anyone know much about them? The grower says they fruit all yr. can that be true? I bought it because I'm in an apt. In Pa. Can't grow in dirt outside. Anyone have a truly tiny banana tree?

They're all tiny at first. Do you know what variety it is? I just read recently that ice cream bananas are really delicious and relatively cold hardy, and people in NJ are successfully growing fruit by wrapping up the plants in lots of hay and bubble wrap to overwinter in the ground. I may try that. Bananas have such a bloody history...I'd love to be able to grow some of my own and stop supporting the big, abusive commercial banana growers. (Besides, the Cavendish is probably not long for this earth.)

Just make sure that it stays up and alive thru winter and eventually it'll fruit, what the seller means is that it can fruit any time of the year, and the process takes along time. Growing bananas out of their zone for fruit doesn't really make sense, I like the way they look!

I'm not wild about super dwarfs, I have poquito, very similar to truly tiny, I've only gotten it to 3 feet and I lost that pstem, so no fruit off that one this year...

Try Viente Cohol. I'm in Missouri and mine just bloomed in a pot outdoors. It's roughly 4-5 feet tall.

don't they die after fruiting? I would rather have a large plant than a few bananas. It takes a while up north to get them big.

Best bet would be to dig them up and store in winter in a cool but non freezing place to preserve the pstem (Must survive more than one season usually) for blooming if you dont have a warm greenhouse, or large room, but this does not work with all varieties, especially not the Cavendish types (stems die leaving corms), and your summers might be shorter than ours here in Oklahoma. Some types that store well this way with varying degrees of success are Orinoco (Does great), Dwarf Orinoco, Raja Puri, Dwarf Namwah, Musa Icecream. Saba stored well like this too, but I wont see fruit on it, it takes too long, and saba gets huge eventually and probably unmanageable for storage. Here is my tall Orinoco I have fruiting right now at ten feet of stem in zone 7a planted in the ground about April 15th (gets about 20 feet with leaves) that slept under my house bare root last winter at about 45/50F, with no roots, soil, leaves, light, water, etc. (Warning, Orinoco pstems can weigh 100+ pounds, pick a dwarf variety if you have a bad back) It takes about 3 weeks to resume growth in spring, plant the pstem a little deeper the next year to stabilize, and you have to take the time it takes to ripen in consideration for the type you are growing. You have to beat the first frost, and some types take a very long time to ripen, you wont always get fruit due to timing. Its been my experience that Viente Cohol does not overwinter very well indoors, dying back to pot level for me, and re sprouting, and you would need a pretty tall ceiling if you have a mature plant, and very big windows. But it is a short cycle banana, and can fruit and ripen very quickly if you can accommodate it, and worth a try. A banana pstem (visible false stem made of rolled up leaves, like straws inside of straws) will die after fruiting, but the corm/rhizome (The core of the plant) survives and puts up new pups/babies to replace the dead one. With this dig and store method, you get almost instant banana plant, and they look very impressive at about 20 feet (Including leaves) in a couple of months.

After six months of storage under the house before planting again.

Hottina44,

I bought 'Truly Tiny' back in February, and keep it in a 20" pot in a basement growing space during the winter.

Here in CT zone 6b, I put it outdoors in direct sun in mid-May, and in spite of a very wet, cool 4 weeks, it is doing well, with lots of healthy leaves and pups growing.I'll take it back inside at the end of September, or whenever the evenings are going lower than 50°. If I build a lean-to for it on a south wall, the outdoor period can probably be etended byb1 month on each end, so, mid-April to end of October. After that, it's LED's in the basement.

My understanding is that TT does stay under 5', total, so it's worth a try! I have a couple of m.'Pink Velutina' I started from seed, with one in flower, and I guess this ornamental will take up to 6 months to ripen. I've posted here recently about this.

Keep us posted on how your TT does!

--Rick in CT

Pink Velutina July 5, 2017:

Truly Tiny June 23, 2017:

Rick in CT