Hi Summersunshine. I purchased a Ruby Red Musa/Banana 4 or so months ago. Although it came from a reputable seller on Ebay, it arrived skimpy. Bananas aren't the easiest plants growing indoors, especially during winter months. Not enough humidity or light. Two years ago I did something dumb..planted two, small banana trees in the garden. By Autumn, both were over 12'..lol. I didn't think to cut them back, or remove pups, so they froze during our IL winter. I have two old Bird-of-Paradise that are related to Bananas and look somewhat similiar. One reason I decided not to buy another Banana after the garden experiment. However, the leaves on the Ruby are green and red..red attracted me to the plant. We'll see how it does come winter. I also have a Pomegranate Tree..neither plant will like indoor living, that's for sure, but both are worth a try. A couple other problems growing Bananas indoors. Sometimes they're sold as dwarves..yet they grow and grow. But worse, lack of humidity plus dry air, the perfect climate, begets insects to hatch. Mealy has been a problem the last two years. Mites also attack banana trees. Some people rather stay away from more difficult plants because they don't want to bother with pests. Maybe that's one reason Bananas aren't talked about much, at least not here on House Plants. Do you have a Banana? Toni

California Gold is a good one, though I think it has a flavor similar to Orinoco. You have most of the good cold hardy dwarf bananas already. Ice Cream banana is also another great one though it tops out around 8-10'.

Hi Tropicalgrower, It is a real variety that apparently is very popular in Hawaii. I actually found a source for it but it is going to cost me an arm and a leg to get it here. Hi Harry, Do you think that the fusarium wilt we be an issue for me growing it in NY, or is that a disease that is in all climates? I think I actually have heard of the vusarium wilt. Never have heard of the Sigatoka though. I will have to check these out. Thanks for the heads up! Andrew

We have a couple of dwarf redbuds. only been in the ground a couple years, so hard to give a full response. Of interest, locally, redbuds are nearly non existent in the area. Old timers refer to them as dead-buds, so there's something in this region, be it altitude, spring weather, winter wind, summer humidity...whatever. The spring of 2016 locally was brutal. Early warm weather followed by long lingering cool, damp, seasonally cold weather. local orchards were hard hit, certain crops locally were wiped put entirely (cherries, apricots, peaches, plums. only pears and apples had any harvest and they were down signigicantly). We have 5 redbud trres. Two recently planted dwarves, still under 3' tall, and two with trunks close to 6", ten to 12' overall size, and one weeping at about 5' tall. the larger trees and the weeper had very few flowers and took forever to leaf out...if you were impatient, you may well have yanked them. ultimately, they leafed out fine, so we'll see this coming spring. The smaller two looked happy as clams. they bloomed fully, leafed out as though there wasn't a single problem. Was this a size and protection thing? time may tell.