Dr. Who,

Maybe the Daleks are somehow interfering with the growth cycle. LOL!

Actually, if you do a search on Ae Ae here, you will find many remarks to the same effect. Perhaps the slowest-growing and slowest-suckering banana ever.

I agree with the SLOW growth. I'm in S FL and bought one about 3 feet tall (total). I would say it took about 2 years to bloom. BUT mine did produce pups farily well during this time. By the time it set fruit, it had about 8 pups. Again, a little different as the pups never got very big. Tallest was about 8 inches and looked like a little ice cream cone. I had to move (see earlier post) and had to cut the mother plant off before fruit ripened. I dug up the corm and took it and after planting it, the pups all took off. 2 grew very rapidly and the rest slowly. After I cut these two off, the next 2 took off and 2 new pups appeared. I don't know the technical term but I feel the AE-AE doesn't have the growth energy of other bananas. It can only support the main plant and start pups but doesn't have the energy(?) to get the pups growing also. Maybe in a mature clump, this would be different with several plants growing.

Good luck - Terry

It is possible the slow growth has to do with the fact it's variegated.

Less green = less chlorophyll = less capacity to produce food/energy = slower growth.

Bananas have very high leaf area, and even the pseduostems are photsynthesizing. The variegation should be a little factor. In fact I even cut some of the leaves to keep my bananas neat, and fruit production doesn't seem to be affected. The same is true for my variegated lemon, calamondin, kumquats and even bougainvillea. I don't have variegated bananas, however.