No fruit on the banana trees

[k2au]

Hi,
I am a newbie to this group.
I live in south florida and like to grow things. I have about 8 regular size and 4 dwarf size banana trees. Some have been in the ground for over 7 years. I don t get any bananas from any plant and I m at the point of cutting them all down. Does anyone have any ideas why the bananas are not growing.
Thank You,
Mark

[Vallejo Ca]

Did you plant them yourself?

[k2au]

Yes, I planted them myself .
They all grow up and have little trees growing near them

[Vallejo Ca]

The reason I asked was that i ve seen where someone...including myself,mix up a Bird of Paradise plant with a banana.They both have dwarf and giant forms and have the paddle leaves.

Heck,where you live you ought to be up to your eyeballs in banana fruit year round.

No clue here,sorry.

[mskitty38583]

have they been fertilized? from what ive read over the last 2 nites, it can take up to 2 to 2 1/2 years for a nana to flower and fruit. it also depends on the type of banana plant, culture and your growing zone. how long has it been since you planted them? so dont wack them down just yet.if you have more questions, send me an e-mail and i can send you to a site.im new to the banana world too, just remember any question can be answered.just have to know where to look.

---

[mskitty38583]

oh and those little trees under the big ones are called pups. you dont want to move them if they are really small the bigger they are before you remove them from the mom, the better. however you dont want them to be 15 foot tall and then try to move them.

---

[k2au]

I don t move the pups. I let them grow.
I don t fertilize the banana trees. The origional trees were planted over 5 years ago and the
pups are big now. Maybe they are to close to each other. Maybe I should put move space
between them.

[mskitty38583]

you can go to www.bananas.org and post on line. there are people who have had the same issue w/ no fruit.

---

[poppabrooke]

an old but friendly local on Oahu,,, gave me a method when my one year old plant was not producing,,, Lay a circle of garden hose around the base and flood the root area overnite about half inch of water. In less than 2 weeks it produced around 25 poundsof delicious fruit.. it was a great plant. ( the plant was about 8 to 9 feet tall with 10 inch trunk)

[k2au]

Thanks for the reply. I have been watering the plants alot. Today I plan to fertilize. This should give me results. I didn t realize that these trees needed alot of water.