When I visited the MO botanical gardens last year, it seems that Yellow Groove was the type they had growing outside. I'm not completely sure- my main reason for being in MO was a family funeral, so I'm fuzzy on the exact species. Obviously, you can't dig at your own pleasure, but I wonder if they ever have plant sales?

STL_novice, some of the mail order companies are indeed good and I've had good results ordering from Swan Island, but mail order in general tends to be expensive and can be hit or miss on quality depending on the company. For a novice I would actually recommend just going to Walmart or Lowes and getting whatever they have in packages. Often the packages are transparent and you can sometimes find tubers that are already sprouting in the package so you know they are viable. The varieties will be very limited but for a novice this isn't such a big deal. I've had great success with Arabian Night, Kelvin Floodlight, Akita, and Onesta from chain stores. Plus if they don't sprout the chains are good about giving you replacements or refunds. Once you get hooked you can always explore the near limitless varieties in the catalogs.

Thanks guys. Johnnieb, WOW, I was down there in September, and did not take any pics, but man those bananas were almost twice the height in Sept 08 than they are in your photo from July. It always amazes me how fast they grow. Ive had Musa basjoo go from 1 foot tall, to 15 feet in just a few months. Definitely the thing to grow if you want fast, and extremely noticeable results. I wonder if they would care if anyone took any of the seedlings? I would guess they would not since there are literally hundreds of them in that planter and the surrounding planters. I wish they would let them go to seed more. When I was there in Sept, I was there twice in two weeks, and the second time I went down I noticed they had removed all of the seed stalks from the Sabal Minor. It was kind of disappointing. I would venture to guess that once enough of those get planted around the DC area, and are left to go to see, we might start seeing them naturalise a bit in and around the city.

Thanks all. I've been duped! Maybe thats why they died so fast. Or perhaps thats why they didn't have them this year because they were informed they were not Basjoos. I'm determined yet to get some to grow on the South side of my mobile home. If anyone would like to see more photos of the Basjoos that I took a while back, they are here in my photobucket album. - http://s7.photobucket.com/albums/y255/io555/musabasjoobanana To change the name of that photo-album to DwarfCavendish would break all the links to the album so I should leave the web address like it is for now, musabasjoo. I didn't think I'd have bananas with basjoo, I don't really want bananas, that would be asking a bit much! I know some people in more southern climes, I'll have to suggest DwarfCavendish to them so they get bananas. Here is where I'd like to plant them, along with my Red-Tipped Photinia, 3 Crape Myrtles and some Tulip bulbs scattered about. - http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v243/w4i0a/mobilehome/mobilehomesouthsidefrontflowerandtreebed/ That flower bed is on the South side so I am hoping for good things! In any case, I keep receipts, for returns, especially on marginals. The trees are in the ground below the flower bed, I cut slits in the weed fabric to fit around them. Will