You may want to give these nurseries below a call and check them out. JRN carries alot of exotic plants. Joseph, in Pearland, is a humongous nursery that also carries exotic plants. Last time I visited Joseph, about a decade ago, they picked us up in a golf cart to directly go to this greenhouse dedicated only for yellow chrysanthemums. I can't imagine how large it is now. JRN Nursery 4809 Breen Dr Houston, TX 77086 Tel: 281-448-6107ý 281-448-4127ý JRN 2nd location in the SW area: JRN Nursery 2 11701 Alief Rd, Houston, Tx Tel: 281-495-5450 RCW Nurseries 15809 Tomball Pkwy. Houston, Tx 77086 Tel: 281-440-5161 Joseph's Nursery 3723 Fm 1128 Rd Pearland, TX 77584 Tel: 281-489-9786 Good Luck and have fun with plant shopping! Natalie PS: Here's a tip: Leave your credit cards home and bring only enough cash that you're intending to use. Unless, you have great self control =o)

rayandgwen, it's nice to hear that your ice cream grows like weeds. I wish mine could do that too. I can now see that the planting zone does play a big part as the heat and the humidity certainly help in the rapid growth. Fertilizing a few months apart sounds like a good plan. I haven't tasted ice cream, but heard it's one of the best. As in my case, the temp drops down toward the end of the year and that's where my bananas take all the beating. I lost several blooms and mother plants in the cold over the last few years. The funny thing is that some of my bananas chose to bloom toward the year end and when the cold came, they dropped their blooms and died. I heard there's something about the cold that triggers the fruit production. All in all, the dying off and re-establishing pattern down here slows down the fruit production process. mbearbird, it looks to me your plant needs time to warm up to the summer weather. I think your ice cream's doing fine considering your planting zone. Give it plenty of sunshine and lots of water (allowing the top 1-2" of the pot to dry off before watering again). Continue to do what you're doing. If I remember correctly, there was a person from Illinois who got fruit from his ice cream after growing it 3 years in a pot. The year he got fruit was when he planted it in the ground in the summer.

Cutting the Male flower off is more of a personal choice , If you do make sure there is at least 12" of stem. as it will slowly get dark and make its way to the fruit if you cut it to short.... I leave it alone... Rule of thumb is 3 plants to a corm, this allows for ongoing production and you should get fruit every year barring a hard freeze. Another trick is to mark the date on your pups when there small and see which ones fruit during the summer and get ripe before winter comes... Then only keep the pups that are produced during this yearly time frame.....

I'm glad your ice cream has come around for you, Bryan. I do echo with Steve on planting the bananas when they're at least a foot tall. Usually the pups that pop up near the mother plant are able to survive better as they're part of the comb. But pups that that are on their own root system usually are weaker especially when they're very small. So, the idea of a root hormone makes a lot of sense there. I do apply root hormones whenever I plant new things in the ground. I've tried that on my bananas and they're doing rather well (pictures attached below). They're pushing out new growth a few days into planting. I dug out some Mexican Red pups after its parent died. Some of them were transplanted to a new spot. The littlest one came loose on its own and survived in pot for a while, but it died recently when I placed it in a sunny location :( Apparently, I've forgotten that these young plants need some kind of sun protection too. Now, I have a make shift beach umbrella to help out my other young plants in the ground when the sun is too strong. Here are a couple of my newly planted bananas: Left: Mexican Red, Center: Musa Sumatrana X cross (I think), Right: Raja Puri Pineapple Right: Double Mahoi, Center: Kru (a red banana) and Right (Dwarf Namwah) Some of these varieties are cold sensitive ... especially "Kru" and possibly "Double Mahoi," "Mexican Red," and Musa Sumatrana. I love all these red bananas, but they don't seem to stand the cold too well. They have been in the pot and are doing nothing much, so I thought to let them at least try out in the ground. And I picked close to the house for added protection. We'll see how they do this Winter. Do share more pictures as your ice cream grows for you, Bryan.