You may have better success if you post on the Tropical Plants Forum or the Garden Exchange...MM.

It's taken a while and a bit of persistence (christmas new year maybe??)

but if any one else is interested in getting a blue java banana (the vanilla flavoured banana) or any other legally obtainable banana - contact the DPI queensland website and find their contact link
send an email and they will give you the details of who to contact. a bit if a round about way for me to put this post up - but I don't think it would be right for me to put the phone number of a departmental researcher onto this forum.

the link to the web site is below and the varieties which should be available are:

Ladyfinger, Blue Java, Ducasse, Goldfinger, Bluggoe (plantain or cooking banana), and Kluai Namwa Khom (Dwarf Ducasse) and Pisang Ceylan.

Here is a link that might be useful: DPI banana page

That information is most useful, Paradisi. I never even thought of growing bananas until I moved here and found a plant growing in the backyard, now setting fruit. (I think it's a Ladyfinger.) You inspired me to have a chat with a bloke from the DPI, and the upshot is that I'm getting one Goldfinger pup sent down to me from near Toowoomba--by bus. How quaint is that :-)

I liked the sound of the Blue Java (vanilla flavoured), but the DPI bloke said he thought it was a cooking banana. Is it? On the net it's most often described as a 'dessert' banana. Does that mean it's best cooked or eaten fresh?

Hi Cestrum - glad the info was some use

The vanilla (blue java) is definitely an eating banana

She Who Must Be Obeyed tried one eight or ten years ago and raved about getting one when I started to set up the garden.

I've just found out from DPI that special permission can be applied for to grow the "banned" bananas - the seeded variety.

You have to fill out an application form and cross your heart and hope to die that you won't let birds or bats at the fruit (the banana blue plastic bag helps). It's then up to the inspectors to decide if you will be allowed to grow the bananas. The "banned" bananas would then be grown from tissue culture from the collection at Nambour (apparently the worlds biggest collection of banana species).

If you check out the banana forum in the USA part of garden web you'll see there's dozens(maybe hundreds) of varieties available. Not all are edible, some are only ornamental, but I might yet end up with my pink velvet banana. :-)

Here is a link that might be useful: banana forum

Thanks for that, Paradisi. You've inspired me to request a permit to grow one Blue Java banana too. (The woman from the Nambour centre said that they send out the plants in tissue culture in May, and I'll be receiving a banana-growing kit before then.) As an ex-Melburnian I'm thrilled to be able to grow any bananas at all. Reminds me of when my cousins from Frankfurt visited us in Melb. The peeling bark of the paperbark trees lining the streets and the other native trees in full flower elicited only polite interest, but what struck them as completely amazing was ... the lemon trees growing in people's gardens! They can only be grown in pots or greenhouses over there, because of the snowy winters.

Hello folks down under......

I just happened to take a peak as to what's going on here and found this Ice Cream Banana discussion!

Today I sent the Ms to work with about 5 or 6 Ice Cream Banana pups to share.

At first, I was disappointed with the flavor of the Ice Cream variety. I was expecting the flavor of vanilla custard as it is so advertised.

To us, the flavor is that of a nice banana, not ice cream at all. The person who named this variety must have only experienced banana splits as an ice cream flavor.

The plant grows to about 15ft tall. It takes approx one yr to set fruit. It take a long time for the fruit to ripen as well.

In my own experience, the plants were not setting fruit in twice the time expected. I had decided to fertilize it very heavily as I heard needs to be done. I placed a 16oz cup full of 10-10-10 fert every WEEK.

This plant was going to produce or die with these heavy amounts of fert.

Within one month I had three of the Ice Cream plants flowering. I have some other banana plant also that never flowered start producing as well.

I wish you all the best of luck growing them, they are very nice, however mine do not taste like ice cream at all.

Once I was over the flavor disappointment, I learned to love them for what they are.

Have a great day

Tony

This cultivar is really worth growing , slightly slower than normal types but well worth the wait . Very creamy .