Banana Plants From Our Neighbors!

We have a couple of guys who live down the road from us, and they are great gardeners, and their whole yard is full of beautiful plants and trees. They offered us some starts from the banana plants, and we eagerly said YES, and today they came down with several plants in the back of their pickup. One of the banana plants must be at least 8’ tall , but it will freeze out over the winter and then grow back again next spring.
They also brought us a lemon tree and it is 6-7’ Tall as well. We have to bring that one in for the winter, and then it can go back outside next spring. He said that they get lemons from it as it is an older tree.
It is supposed to rain tonight and probably tomorrow , and then the ground should be nice and soft for us to plant the banana trees.

 

Unfortunately, no bananas, @Holly Saunders . They will die down each winter and then come back of from the root each spring and should get taller each year as the root develops; but they will never be able to actually produce any bananas. They are such beautiful and tropical plants that ours will just be greenery for us to enjoy.

 

You are in enough of a warmer climate that you do not have to bring those lemon trees inside each winter, whereas we do have to do that once it gets cold enough to have a hard frost or a freeze. We already brought the two smaller ones inside, and the neighbors also gave us a large lemon tree that they didn’t have room for in their house anymore, so we will have to figure out where it can go.
It is almost as tall as our ceiling, so Bobby will have to prune it back a little (too tall for me to prune it) and then we are going to move my chair out of the corner and put the lemon tree there for the winter.
We do get blossoms on the lemon and orange trees, but something (squirrels ?) ate the fruit when it was tiny, so we didn’t get any that grew large enough for us to pick. This year, we might try putting some netting over the tree and keep the critters out until the fruit grows too large for them to eat.
I am not sure which variety of banana tree we have, but it also dies off when it freezes and then comes back in the spring and re-grows. I think that I read that it takes about 2 years for the banana plant to produce fruit, so ours never live long enough to do that.
We might put one of the smaller ones in a large planter and bring it inside, but it would probably still not be old enough to produce bananas. It will look nice in the yard though, and we can enjoy how green and beautiful it is and it will come back larger and larger each year.

 

We actually have started working on a greenhouse out in back of Bobby’s shop. I say “we”, but it is actually @Bobby Cole who has been doing all of the work. He is the builder in this family. It will get a lot of sun during the winter season when the leaves are off of the tree, and then be shaded during the heat of summer. Bobby wants to have some heat in his shop (once he has more tools in there again) and this would keep the greenhouse warmer, too.
It won’t have to be really warm, but at least enough to keep things from freezing.
I think that the banana plants would still be too tall for the greenhouse before they had bananas; but we could have the lemon trees in there. If they were inside of the greenhouse, they would also be more protected from the squirrels eating the baby fruit also.

We took down the swimming pool, and are thinking about just putting in a back patio where Bobby has leveled off the area. He can pour cement there instead, and we could even have one of those little screened in things where we can sit outside and not get munched by mosquitoes. Bananas and cannas growing around the patio would look pretty.
Since we swim at the fitness center, and mostly just lay in the little pool here at home to suntan and keep cool in the summer, we are going to just get one of the smaller pools for next year. At least, that is the plan.
Here is a pretty picture of landscaping a back yard with bananas and cannas and other tall plants.

 

Every year, the banana plants die back when it frosts, unless we bring them inside for the winter, which we can do with the small ones. They do not like all of the shade in the front yard, and barely get to 2 feet tall all summer; so this year I moved them out back where we get a little more sunlight. The dirt is too hard to dig in, so I used a round swimming pool float and filled it with potting soil and planted the little banana trees in that.
The bananas grew really well out back, and are around 5-6 feet tall right now (and the round floats are deflated, probably from the dogs toenails).
It is going to get down to freezing before much longer and then they will die off, and we will cover over them with leaf mulch to protect the root bulb over the winter.
Next year they should grow even taller, and have put more roots underground.

 

We have not had any problems with any kind of bugs on the banana plants. They will be freezing and dying for the winter soon though; but right now the leaves are huge and beautiful.