A new "daughter" should appear, along with several others long before your mature plant fruits; after your plant fruits, it will remain on the mother for about 2-3 months, "plumping" out; after the bunch has swelled and plumped out to their fullest you will sever it from the plant and hang it "inverted" in a cool dark area...like the garage; in a week or so your bunch should begin ripening. This is when you cut the mother down from the base...leave the corm alone, for it will be the root system for the new additions.....good luck!

Is it to late to transplant befor winter? Is one mopnth enough for the babies to get established

yes it is late to transplant one month before winter, you do not have time, one month is not enough, you should transplant at least 4 month before winter starts.

---

bob

..if you are located in an area where the ground freezes it is very difficult to achieve an inflourescence; most species need around 13-20 months to break flower..

Banana can grow (perform) best at temperature range between 27 to 33 degrees Celsius with RH about 90 %. For that reason, I do not advise people in places where the temperature drops down to freezing point to plant banana. They should plant something else like apples or cherries.

---

bob

Bob....what if you don't like apples or cherrys?
jim

---

[fontd=Comic Sans MS]

You can still grow banana's just for the sheer beauty of the plant. I don't grow them for the fruit.

---

Make your words soft and sweet; you just may have to eat them someday.

thats right! I don;t know of any other plant that gives a tropical ambiance that compares to a beutiful well cared for banana mat! Nick

The temp can drop to freezing here in Portland Or. Where I also have apples and cherries. Although the plums took a front seat this year. I agree with Nick though, I am a host for the Fall Garden Tour, and some of the most amazing gardens had a focus area with a beautiful banana groupings!

Anyone knows why is it necessary to desucker the bananas and how to do that activity?

The reason you remove suckers from a banana is to improve not only the time to achieving a bunch of fruit, but also the size of the bunch; the less energy the corm (rhizome) has to distribute throughout the mat (the growing group), the more it can put into the main plant for optimum results. There should be no more then 4 plants to a mat at any given time, and the removal process is simple; when the suckers are about 3 feet high and have about 3-4 leaves of their own, take a long bladed shovel, and dig down parallel to the mothers pseudostem (main stalk) until you hit resistance then cut through that section and the pup will pop away from the mothers stalk, then just dig up the root ball and section of the corm and replant elsewhere.

So... what you're saying is, if the single parent plant is sending new suckers, you can just transplant them into another position? Many said it is desireable to KILL the sucker. But I think it's not a good idea. Will the mother plant still bear a big bunch even if you transplanted all the suckers, but only leaving one?

---

Plant a Banana in Soil;
And Before you know, it will start to grow...

Hello.
We planted 3 Banana Tree plants in a "flower bed", and the plants are thriving. Each plant seems to grow a new leaf every day or at least 6 inches per day. (We live in Texas.) My question is, one of the Banana Trees had new shoots when we planted it, but these shoots are growig at the same rate as the "mother" plant. I would love to know how do I transplant these "babies" without harming the mother or the baby plant?
Any tips?

Thanks!
plantfan07

The best way to understand the dynamics of a banana mat, is to picture a hug potato type bulb underground, in which all the plants sprout from, this is the corm of the banana plant, the true stem, in which all sprouts develop; when the first plant develops, its called the mother, the next is the daughter, etc. The best way to manage this mat, is to allow the first pup (daughter) to grow to about 3 feet, then sever her from the underground corm, by using a long bladed shovel and cut perpendicular down the shafte of the larger plant (where she is growing next to) and pop it away, in essence, you are severing off a section of that "undeground potato", the corm with roots attached, then you simply plant this section elsewhere. The less plants the corm has to handle, the more robust the bunch will be on the older plants, leaving one, two or even three pups to develop next to the mother is fine, the problem is when a mat is not managed, and you get numerous pups popping up everywhere, then there just isn't enough energy from the corm to put into a substantial bunch of bananas. When too many pup start popping up, and they are all too small to transplant, then yes, you should pop them off (killing them) to deter taking away from the mothers quest to grow a bunch.

A better thing to do is;
leave one good sword sucker for next years growth. Make sure it is in a good position. Then all the other sword suckers you wanted to transplant will be transplanted. Get a sharp spade or a strong iron bar. Water the plant well. Then push the iron bar down through the tissue that connects the mother from the sucker. Do this several times until the sucker is removed. Then dig up the soil around the sucker and uproot it carefully. The roots will surely be cutt but it will stil be replaced. But wait, only transplant sword suckers. Water suckers or suckers that have wide leaves, even if they are newborn should be killed because they grow very weak. Dig out the whole corm of one water sucker and discard. But if you kave a dwarf variety and the suckers are small but have wide leaves, it's fine for them but not for bananas that grow big. But remember when the mother plant starts to flower, the suckers growing should NOT be disturbed anymore...

Well, that's all I know.

Thanks...

---

Plant a Banana in Soil;
And Before you know, it will start to grow...
Edited by 157bananalover on Jul 16, 2007 at 09:24 AM