Congratulations on your newly producing banana tree!

We're used to oranges, lemons, etc....but how fun to have bananas. Hope they are delish and don't get ripe all at once!

Lars before you plant it in the ground try to find out if it is one of the bananas that after it fruits it develops pups and the mother plant dies. If it is that type you may have several smaller plants to find places for rather than one big spot. I have a friend who was attempting to breed hardy bananas that could withstand the weather in this area but I paid little attention other than some bananas when they pup they die.

That's fab!! Most bananas won't fruit in California, except that little area near Santa Barbara. Mine's happy as a plant, but has never fruited. It must be a lot damper at your house. :)

I called my friend and he confirmed that when a banana of any type fruits that stalk will die. However there should be pups. There may only be a couple of pups or many.

Awesome! You are so lucky to have so many wonderful beautiful plants and trees.

The tree already has pups, and so it would be those that I would plant in the ground. The problem with having it in the ground is that it starts to spread its pups in several directions, although they are fairly easy to remove.

If too many bananas get ripe at once, I will just freeze them. I freeze white sapote and lemons also.

Best to keep it in the tub rather than chase the pups. If you have room to protect them during the few really cold days you could place them around your pool.

I cannot plant them in Cathedral City, as I have very little ground near the pool, and they require way too much water. I only grow desert plants there, as I am not there often enough to keep up with watering.

Banana trees do quite well in Los Angeles, especially here on the west side, and do not need that much extra water. Lots of people in Westchester have banana trees, but most are ornamental instead of fruiting.

That is super cool!

I have some that supposed to be "Ice Cream" banana plants. I don't know much about them so I can only assume they really are.

They're far from dwarfs though. The stalk are get 12 inches or more in diameter. The stalks, 12 feet or more. Probably more because there's no way I can reach the bananas to harvest them. The leaves that stick up probably reach 20 foot.

The fruit is smallish but very tasty. (Party/mostly because they're allowed to ripen naturally?)

I just took a much too dark picture to try to show size.

For scale, the pups on the right are about 4 foot tall.

How exciting is that!!!!!! I love looking at the pictures of all you plants, Lars.

Oh, Lars, that is very exciting. Being in Michigan, of course, I've never seen a banana tree. I did plant figs two years ago, but they did not survive the winter. I replanted last year and they did not survive last winter either, although it was quite mild for us, it only got below zero a couple of times. I gave up and planted sweet cherries in that spot this year, I know they'll grow here.

Enjoy your bananas, I'm sure you'll making something delicious with them.

Annie

What fun!

I have a sort of sorbet machine.....you freeze any fruit, push it through and it comes out the other end....like sorbet.....bananas are really good that way.

I've been making sorbet from frozen fruit in the blender since 1986, and my favorite fruit for this is cantaloupe. I generally add frozen bananas to smoothies that I make. I freeze the bananas without peeling them, and then when I want to use them, I submerge them in warm water for a couple of minutes, which allows them to be peeled easily.

Annie, my father tried to grow cherries in Texas, but it does not get cold enough in the winter for them to make fruit properly.

Here's a photo of my previous banana tree, which never made fruit

It made plenty of pups but always stayed leggy and never made any flowers or fruit. It was supposed to be a dwarf Cavendish, but it was neither dwarf nor Cavendish. I kept it for five years and then gave up on it, as it made too many pups and no fruit.

Awesome! That would be so cool to have your own banana tree!!

It's a very cool looking tree, but I'm like you, if it didn't have fruit and got too big for its alloted space, I'd have tried something else too. I like the banana leaves too, they just look so unique, like ruffles.

Cherries do well here, as you know, and now I have about three years to figure out how to keep the birds from eating them all. Do bananas have pests or creatures that want to eat them, besides people?

Annie

Can you say banana pancakes?!

I'm trying to find out if squirrels, possums, or raccoons might try to eat the bananas. There is a white sapote tree next to the banana tree that has lots of fruit on it, and so they should eat that instead - it has a very thin peel. I'm considering putting some sort of netting over it - I did that with pineapples.

I had this in a pot in my back yard, and I had to put netting over it as it got ripe.

Pineapples too?!!

Dang! That is A W E S O M E ! A tropical garden of Eden!

@Lars Are you in Westchester? If so, that's my home town. I grew up on 76th street where my parents had a tiny 1930s house on an acre of land. We grew all sorts of things -- it is a great area for growing.

Do you keep your pineapples outside? Ours are in pots in the greenhouse. I wonder if we should bring them out for the summer?!?!

Lynda, yes I am in Westchester, very close to 76th Street, and just down the street from the Centinela Adobe, near Benjamin Ave. My particular neighborhood (Osage) was built between 1947 and 1953, mostly as housing for Hughes Aircraft workers. You must have grown up on the other side of La Tijera, if your house was from the 1930s.

The weather here is great for growing things, but the soil at our particular house is not that great. We are kind of at the top of a hill, and the soil is dry, hard clay and does not drain well. We had much better soil in Venice.

I keep the pineapples outside all year, and some of them are planted in the ground, although they do better in pots because I can control the soil better. I've never brought them inside.

What kind of soil do you use for both the banana and the pineapple?

I use cactus soil for the pineapple (which I use for all my bromeliads), and I use regular potting soil for the banana. To fertilize the banana, I use 20-20-20 very diluted and only every two months or so.

Lars, how exciting, and it's so beautiful, too!

I've never had anything bother my bananas even though I sometimes leave them up until they start to yellow. (Frogs sometimes make a home amongst them but they don't eat them. :)

Nor have I had anything mess with my pineapples even though I leave them out until they turn golden yellow. That's a beautiful pineapple Lars. It must have been nice and sweet.

Something has discovered my mangoes. I wish whatever it is would eat a whole one instead of eating a little bit of every one that falls. I'm slowly learning to shake the branches to see if any falls. Or give a gentle tug. Whatever it is doesn't seem to bother them until they hit the ground.

Beautiful bananas! Enjoy them in your smoothies. I have heard of people growing them here in the Santa Cruz and San Jose area. I have never tried. I've read that they grow best in 55-90 degree temperatures. My sister in FL (Vero Beach) grows several kinds and also grows pineapples and other tropical friut like mangos and papayas. I sometimes envy her but she can't grow berries, apples or pears like me. Best to be happy with what you can grow.

That is really cool, and exciting to see them grow and ripen.

@Lars Wow, you are very close to where I grew up. I was on your side of La Tijera, and went to Osage Elementary in the 1970s. The house could have been built in the 1940s instead of the 1930s or maybe it predated the other homes. I know the people who bought it from my parents in the 1980s, subdivided the property. My Mother used to say that the land our house was built on had originally been part of the Centinela Adobe's ranch and we occasionally found random metal pieces when we dug up the ground. I definitely know what you mean about the hard adobe soil. We have some of the same challenges in the Santa Barbara area -- great climate but lousy soil.

That must have been fun to come home to, Lars. I remember how excited I was the first time my lime set fruit. In the house. Our coastal weather north of you isn't quite reliable enough to grow citrus or tropicals outdoors. I do remember a banana tree in my aunts yard in El Segundo, but that was decades ago...

Good luck with your fruit. Be sure to let us know what you do with the ripe product ;0)

That is beautiful and exciting. I have a fruit tree planted 5-6 years ago, one of three, that may fruit for the first time this year. Never expected it to do so well.

We need these plantings to give some joy right now. I'm thankful you had a safe trip back to your other home.

The bananas did give me some joy. I've had bananas off the tree in the tropics, and so I know how good they can be.

As for mangoes, it is a good idea to net the fruit like this, especially to protect them from squirrels. This is similar to what I did with pineapple. I had no problem with animals eating my mangoes in Venice CA, but I did have a teenage surfer steal some of them once. After that I made sure that I kept my back gate locked. My neighbor next door caught the boy stealing my mangoes, and he asked the boy what he was doing, and the boy said that he knew me. Then my neighbor asked him what my name was, and the boy ran off with the mangoes. He only got two or three, but I did not have a large crop that year - only about twelve or fourteen that season, and the boy got the best ones. I didn't care if people stole figs because I had more than I could give away.

I'll have to try netting the mangoes some time. Until this year I was only getting a dozen if that and was losing half of those to... whatever. (I suspect Roof Rats)

This year it flushed twice and is giving me maybe a couple hundred or so, assuming the second flush ripens okay. They look like they will start ripening in a couple weeks.

From the first flush, I've eaten until I'm tired of them, frozen a few dozen after pureeing, and given some away.

Bananas I can usually give away. Mangoes, not so much.

I prefer mangoes, but I don't have room for a mango tree here. I miss the one I had in Venice as well as the fig trees.

Congrats!..I had to cut mine down. I bought the pup at a farmers market and it turned out to be some junk banana. If I had bought a named variety from a nursery,I would have been fine. I had actually gotten a Pineapple to make fruit here in the bay area. About to get some size and then one day..it was eaten. Animals don't care about spicules I guess.

I do have Mangoes...but the Florida reader is right...dang rodents will eat them too. Especially if they hit the ground. Then possums join in.

I have to get tough on critters..more wire fencing to keep tham away from the little yellow tropical Guava's. And, Lars,my first years Santa Rosa Plums. Can hardly wait!

"-------

Lift six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch
Daylight come and me wan' go home

Day, me say day-o
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Day, me say day, me say day, me say day
Daylight come and me wan' go home

A beautiful bunch o' ripe banana
Daylight come and me wan' go home…"

dcarch :-)