Increasingly unhealthy-looking banana plant

[valley]

Hi,I think you should let it out of that little pot.

We had a little banana plant, given us in Queensland, before returning to the States we gave it to wifey's mum. She now gets great bunches of bananas and has to cut it back.
Let the poor little thing out.

Richard

Just looked at your last post. You up planted, it looks happier now.

[imafan26]

I can't tell banana variety by the leaf except for a Brazilian. The apple banana is tall but has a small trunk. If it is a dwarf variety it will still get up to at least 8 ft tall. If not, then it can get up to 25-30 ft tall. There are ornamental bananas which will make a flower stalk but no banana. The smaller bananas here are usually the Dwarf Cavendish (Chinese) , Williams bananas and Bluefield. Cooking bananas are always tall. We don't have a lot of plantain here, I see mostly Saba (Filipino cooking banana similar to plantain in use but much squatter), ladyfinger, Cuban, dwarf Apple, and Apple banana (Brazilian). There are others, these are just the most common ones grown.

[MrBote]

Banana trees are nearly impossible to kill down here, especially if planted anywhere near a septic tank. Frost will knock them to the ground and double the amount will appear by summer. I had a friend who bought a banana tree with full intention of planting it in the ground . . . and didn't. His lawn crew murdered the pot over time with their weed trimmers so he removed the busted plastic and wrapped the root ball with landscape fabric and added some (for the time being, again) potting mix and, there it sits, 3-4 years later, except now it's 5 banana trees and has put forth a really large bunch of bananas that were about 4" long. He's since added garden edging to his 'mound' of banana trees to where it almost looks intentional and is indeed, one with his yard now.

The last time I was there, I noticed that he had a papaya tree, in a pot. . . and he informed me it was gifted to him by his father-in-law. I suggested he might ought to move it closer to where he thinks he might plant it. . .some day.

[applestar]

That's good to know, because I gave up on trying to keep my bigger super dwarf cavendish tree indoors this winter and it's slowly yellowing out in the garage.... I did bring the pup cluster I separated from it last year (already about 4ft tall in its pot) inside for insurance and that one's staying green and producing one leaf every week to every other week....

(That's a good one about the papaya )

[imafan26]

Yeah. Papayas have a taproot and will die if it is broken. In a pot it will wind around and actually stunt the tree. It can still break the pot though.