Hi,
I'm a complete novice and have a banana plant that I have grown for 3 years. It has developed a new shoot at the base and has a couple of small leaves, is it possible to take a shoot and grow a new plant from it?
TIA

hey, i'm a novice also, so don't try this at home. i exposed the root where the pup was and took a nife while pulling gently and seperated it from the root making sure if i made i mistake i would cut into the main root and not the pup. hope this helps i do.

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[fonlt=Arial Black]

You should have no problem with seperating them. I have several trees and have taken a shovel and just pushed it down between the grown tree and "baby" and move the pup to a new location and have not lost a single tree! Just keep the pup watered good for the first week and make sure you refill the hole where you took it from to keep the grown tree from getting a nasty infection or someting.

Just a thought...If you separate the pups from the mother, you'll never get any flowers/fruit. I don't know if you want any, but bananas won't fruit until they secure the next generation in the way of offshoots.

I now have about 44 trees (counting the babies) and the only tree this year that had fruit was one that I took a pup from, as a matter of fact I took two pups from it. It still has two more that came out this year. I have harvested the fruit (mighty good too!) and cut the main tree down to about 4 inches. Some of my trees are about 18 ft. high and provide good shade for the swing. I have transplanted several trees from the MOTHER tree, and they have all survived. I started out with 8 or 9 trees and have multiplied to 44. I'm running out of room for them. My wife even took some to the school where she teaches and they have survived there. (Bad soil and all) Banana trees are very hardy here in south Georgia (Savannah).