location: Piedmont-NC ... I was given a banana tree that was in a pot and went inside in the winter. I recently planted outside beside my house and it has been growing leaves like crazy. I am worried about how it will do during the winters months that are approaching us. Is there something that I can do to make sure that it survives? Like I had said before it is on the side of the house and it gets sun almost all day except for an hour in the morning. I don't have any mulch around it now, is that something I need to look into, and if so what should I do about the babies that are growing? Can I dig those up and replant them in pots? Hope that some can help!

There are many types of banana plants and each one has it's own limit to how much cold it will tolerate. You need to identify what variety you have before you can decide if you want to leave it out and if so does it need mulching. I believe that you are in a zone 7b which means on average your lowest winter temps are about +5F.

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Regards

Thank you for your feed back. ...

but I am not quite sure how to tell what variety of banana tree that I have. It was given to me from my brother that bought a house and the seller left it there. Is there somewhere that I could post a picture and by looking at the picture someone could tell me what type it is?

Yes, it doesn't get too cold here in the winters. Right now the temps in the afternoon are in the mid 80's and at night it is in the mid 50's. It will get no lower then the mid teens in the winter. Now that I said that watch it go in the negatives this winter. ... I was also noticing baby plants growing from around the base, I was reading up on how to dig them up. Is it as simple as just getting a shovel and digging them up and replanting them?

I have been raising Bananas in NC for several years and it seems the most common type that I have seen is the non hardy type in Piedmont. But my advice would dig up a couple small ones and put in pots if you would like to save them and leave the big one out side to test it hardy ness. I live in a small town of Troutman, near Lake Norman and the one that I have will freeze and die, I have tried cutting down and mulching, cutting them in half and wrapping in bubble wrap ,building a wire cage and filling with leaves, and other assorted ideas I have gotten from other bananas growers but nothing work except last year one survived planted in the center of a hallow tree stump and im guessing the composting action of the rotting stump kept it warm enough.
I did them up and divide the baby's putting a few in pots the really big ones (8 or 10 ft) I just knock off the dirt and wrap in newspaper and tape it in place and put it in small trash bags and tape them in place or tie them, put a couple in the gazebo a few in the attic any place that will not freeze, I have a friend that doesn't even wrap his but just throws his under his house and drags it out in the spring.
Tonight i was told that it would be about 30degrees so i went out and cut remaining bunch of bananas that I had outside. We had a long growing season this year