I live in Tx. and would like to grow banana trees indoor year round, is this possible? I would like them to be 10 feet tall or so and not have to go outdoors. I need guidance on what type to buy. Having fruit is unimportant to me I just want a lush easy to grow variety Thanks in advance

you can get dwarf varieties. high color mini musas, dwarf cavendish- there are many types of cavendish, dwarf brazilian, super cavandish dwarfs, dwarf oriniocs. and yes growing bananas indoors is possible. you need to maintaine 70 * or more and provide humidity for them. just remember the more a nana grows the more water it will need. you have to carefully judge the amount or you could end up rotting the roots with too much water. its almost like a balancing act.

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Not really. If you use soil with very high drainage you can't overwater it. But you will need something under the pot to collect the water. Ideally use regular potting soil but add sand and a large layer of mulch. Banana trees can grow entirely in mulch only, though you want to fertilize them a lot. Sand not only improves drainage but has trace elements that they like. I would use a high drainage soil and water it everyday. It is best to put it outside in the summer to get full sunlight and spray it down vigerously with a hose, get all the leaves. You want to spray the leaves with a mister when inside. If you do this every day you wont have to worry too much about humidity though in the winter the air inside can get really dry so you want put a can of water next to the heater so it can evoporate if you are a cheap skate or buy a humidifier. Also a big problem I had was spider mites. When they are indoors. The cure for spider mites is to spray the leaves with water especially the underside. Also for some reason the plants grow better with rain water than tap, so if you want them to be real healthy set them outside during the summer to get some rain and direct sunlight. Also they like to get hosed down.

For indoors you want to buy some light. You want them next to a window AND have artificial light. They like lots of light. If you get at least 12 hours of bright light you are good, but in the north in the winter we don't usually get 12 hours. Full spectrum florecent works. But a Sun glow florecent is best. You can buy these at the pet store, they are sold as reptile lights but work great for plants. For some reason only florecent lights seem to have the right light a plant uses.

You have to understand also they need some sunlight. A plant uses many differnent spectrums of light. A full spectrum florecent light works good, but it would be like you or me living off of nothing but peanut butter sandwhiches and nothing else. It needs to get at least a little variety in its diet. Natural sunlight has every energy spectrum a plant needs any kind of artificial light will only have some of it. even though it can live off of this for a long time, or is good to supplement when you don't get enough sun, it still needs to get at least a little natural light. I suppose some plants can be grown off nothing but artificial light but I wouldn't recommend it.

My favorite variety would be the raja pury, it grows about 9 feet tall and has very dark leaves with some hints of red. It has real thick stalky trunk, its a more stalky tree. The dwarf cavendish is more of a skinny tall tree with bright green leaves. They both grow about the same height, cavendish maybe a bit taller.

I'm going to correct myself. You can over water if the temperature falls below around 70 or if the tree is not actively growing, or if you do not have soil with extremely good drainage. Basically if it is outside in the hot summer and in good soil you want to water it a lot, mainly getting the leaves wet. And when I said use a "normal" potting soil I meant a lightweight soil with perlite like miracle grow potting soil, not some generic potting soil or top soil or whatever. I would even recommend putting a thin layer of gravel at the bottom of the pot to encourage drainage. They even sell this special potting soil which is for certain plants it has light weight rocks and coal and bark in it, that is good to mix with your soil too. The best conditions for a banana is actually insane drainage, meaning big chunky stuff that water passes through quickly, and also to be watered every day. The main thing is the tree loves water but also needs a lot of air in the roots and for them to dry out in between watering. That's why you can grow a banana in %100 mulch and it will be happy as can be. But it would probably be better just to use a potting soil/sand mixture and then a thick layer of mulch at the top that you can scrape away and replace after five or ten years when it rots. The tree will grow lots of roots in the mulch though. And also I guess the cavendish comes in many different sizes.