This video shares 4 tips to grow the most beautiful banana plants you’ve ever seen! With these banana tips, it’s possible to grow bananas down to Zone 5, as cold as -20°F [-29°C]! If you’ve ever wanted to know how to grow bananas in your backyard, look no further!
Many gardeners believe growing banana plants can only be done in the tropics, but most bananas easily recover from sub-freezing temperatures and grow back the next spring. Some cold hardy bananas can survive all the way to Zone 5! I’ve been growing bananas successfully for fruit for many years in Zone 8a North Carolina.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 Introduction To Growing Bananas
2:24 Banana Growing Tip #1
4:48 Banana Growing Tip #2
6:45 Banana Growing Tip #3
8:06 Banana Growing Tip #4
10:03 How To Fertilize Banana Plants
11:46 The Banana Varieties I’m Growing
13:47 Adventures With Dale
If you want to know more banana tips for growing banana trees in your backyard, have questions about growing fruit trees or want to know about the things I grow in my raised bed vegetable garden and edible landscaping food forest, are looking for more gardening tips and tricks and garden hacks, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and “how to” garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the Comments below!
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46 Comments
If you found this video helpful, please "Like" and share to help increase its reach! Thanks for watching 😊TIMESTAMPS for convenience:
0:00 Introduction To Growing Bananas
2:24 Banana Growing Tip #1
4:48 Banana Growing Tip #2
6:45 Banana Growing Tip #3
8:06 Banana Growing Tip #4
10:03 How To Fertilize Banana Plants
11:46 The Banana Varieties I'm Growing
13:47 Adventures With Dale
Dale said walk him right on over to the banana trees, he is happy to a-peez.
What about dog urine, would it be beneficial to train my pack to pee in the banana bed?
I only grow dwarf bananas. I’m not climbing a ladder to get my fruit. I grow dwarf cavendish and just started growing the truly tiny variety that only grow 3-4 feet tall. After the banana fruits and I chop off a bunch, then chop down the fruited stem. It will naturally die anyway. So I chop and drop, in addition I always mulch the area. The humidity breaks it down so fast in south Florida we don’t need to chop up the stem after fruiting. If your in a cold area, try the “truly tiny” variety. Thanks for the great video from zone 10b south Florida. 🍌🍌🍌
I live in So Cal. Have you tried Ice Cream banana? Delicious!
Do the tiny bananas taste good?
Hahaha…I love Voodoo Rangers IPA line
Here in South Florida I can grow 30 foot tall banana plants. They often have so many bananas I have to use the Bobcat to get the bunch down without dropping it. I compost my plants using a lawnmower. All my yard trimmings get dumped on the bananas and shredded after sitting a few days. I have collected urine in a pitcher and dump it out when it is full on the bananas. Have plenty of ducks that deposit their waste everywhere. One tip you may like is that magnesium sulfate (epsom salts) is important when starting your cluster. I did dump the ash and char left over from my woodgas truck for years. I grow orinioco, namwa, cavendish grand nain, gros michel, saba and plantain. had dwarf cavendish but after decades of having it the plants died. I am amazed you can get bananas in a time cycle of less than a year.
When you need to pop the moabs
Thank you for these tips.
Great video! Now make one for 4 tips on how to kill bananas! I had a banana tree too close to my house and it took me 3 years to finally stop it from growing and throwing up pups.
Not sure which video got me to subscribe, but this one is well worth watching. Does it matter if they are shielded from the west sun? I am going to have so much fun growing bananas after watching this. Thanks
I'm just wondering if anyone's had any success growing bananas in zone 6 outside of a greenhouse? We grow them here in Southeast Missouri but we put a portable greenhouse and mulch over ours in the winter would love to find the variety we don't have to have a portable Greenhouse to grow.
Thanks for the tips. I've been collecting urine for my bananas for a while, and can confirm that it works!
Love Dale, what a lucky pup to have such a great family.
Thank you very much for answering my question that I ask a few videos ago. Your banana trees luck awesome. Great advise. Definite will do the pee and mulching down here in central Florida. As always a fantastic video.
Great video! You got me more interested in figs and I'd love to see an annual tour of your fig trees to see what has changed in the last year. Any plans to make a fig tour video anytime soon? Also, i know you use figbid, but do you ever sell cuttings? I'm jealous of your 258 tree!
A common mistake I see – People cut them right after frost damage thinking they are dead. Bananas can loose all leaves and even the top but if you wait to chop, there is a good chance it will push out new growth. Chopping sets you back and you probably won't see fruit that season unless you have another tall pseudobulb that wasn't damaged. The frost damaged leaves that look dead also provide frost protection for the stem.
I am in zone 9a and would like to attempt growing bananas for fruit
This was fantastic! I want to grow a banana tree. Thank you! 🍌
Hey MG – Im in 8a deep south here and growing dwarf namwahs. I just use compost and manure around them in the spring, and feed then with a mix of the MG performance organics edibles, seaweed extract, and unsulfured molasses every 2 weeks during the growing season. My namwahs are right at 15foot at the moment and beginning to flower.
Basjoos are also down here a lot and flower easily every year. They make a great green screen for privacy and look super tropical which is really the only reason I have them haha.
I have been considering a Patupi or Kokopo, or a Viente Cohol as well. Its my understanding that the VC has orange flesh?
If I could get my hands on a Pisang raja I would in a heartbeat – its by far my favorite banana of all time!
DEF diesel exhaust fluid contains nitrogen, I have been told.
They need to be spaced out more in single rows. Just like they do it in banana plantations. Try to chop off the sprouts and just leave the main banana plant. If you grow them in groups, all crowded they have a hard time fruiting.
What time of year is best for transplanting a container banana to the ground?
i’m in 6a. guess i’m outta luck? ☹️
And how many pesticides do you spray on them? Rotenone a good organic pesticide, kills every thing.
Great video, I was wondering what I could use for my dwarf bananas in my zone 6a garden. Do you think if I use these tips and bring them inside, they would fruit even if it was inside?
Human hair is a good source of nitrogen
Does it attract a lot of pests and bugs? If it does how do you maintain it or prepare before hand? Do you believe for some fruit and vegetables can really be grown safe/good in a food grade bucket?
👍👍👍
Very informative video! My banana tree fruited this year and I'm in Zone 8a too. I mulch heavily and also chop and drop. This year I fed them kitchen scraps and covered it with the mulch. However when it fruited the flower only produced a few bananas. The rest didn't get pollinated or we're sterile. How do you avoid that?
What time of year she you plant them in your yard?
I’m growing musa basjoo in Charleston SC but I’m looking to grow some we can eat? Any ideas?
Florida here and I grow bananas. VERY IMPRESSED with your dedication and success growing them in your zone! Great tips, however, as my bananas are in my front yard, close to the street, AND I'm a chick, peeing on them is def out of the question! 😂👍😥
We are in our second year with the Musa Basjoo in zone 7b/8a upstate South Carolina. What fun. I keep all the pups off so the energy can go to the main stem.
This year it is flowering and fruiting, although I know these are non-edible. On this variety, in our zone, no protection is needed. I will fertilize more next year.
Isn't urine bad for real trees? I've heard from cities with places that are often frequented by drunks, or masses of guests (Love Parade, Oktoberfest, etc.) that the trees suffer from being used as pissoirs…
Also, if I'm not mistaken Moringa oleifera is another plant and an actual tree which grows in the tropics but can be grown in temperate climates. It shares with the banana tree the fate of dying back due to frost but regrowing rapidly up to 4m/13ft in a year!
I'm about 2 weeks behind and ahead of you for earlier and later frosts in 7b. Do you just barely get bananas before frost? you think i could make it work in N GA 7b?
You can pee in a 5 gallon bucket and dump it on them. Wood ashes are good potash sources.
Be careful with Mekong Giant. It is a very aggressive spreader sending up runners 6 foot away from the mother plants in one season. Basjoo doesn't run like that. There is another hardy ornamental with purple flowers and fruit, I think its called something like Royalty? It kills to the ground a little more easily than Basjoo, but quickly bounces back forming a tight attractive slow spreading clump.
You can grow faster if you maintain a 4 leaf stem, cut off the older leaves so you’re left with 4 leaves. The banana knows how many leaves it needs to produce before it sends a blossom.
I appreciate all of your videos because even though I have had vegetable gardens for 40+ years, I have learned so much from you. With that being said, I now live near Charlotte NC in zone 7a and wanted to know if you think I would actually be able to grow bananas on a tree and if so which variety of dwarf would be best for where I live? Again, thanks for sharing your gardening experiences and for your amazing videos, 🙏 poppy
Great video! I was not doing any of these things with my banana trees. No wonder thay are only 2 ft tall after a year or two. Poor things have been starving. Off to your store to get them some food! Thanks so much! 😃
So what I don't understand is – do you cut your bananas back, or do you let them die back in the frost, or do you protect them with straw? I am in Southern England and have a musa basjoo (first year and in a tub at the moment)
I live in NC also but we just planted these in the poly tunnel under plastic groundcover. Now I’m thinking they wont grow there.?
I'm in north Mississippi zone 7b trying to grow banna fruit when I rap them in straw do I cover them all the way and do I leave all the leaves
Where is a good place to get the dwarf banana trees? A good online or catalog supplier?
0-0-60 Be careful how much you use or your bananas will split open on the bunch.