Chiltern's/Jungle Seeds/Secret seeds have M velutina - can't remember which one, but I've seen it in one of these. I was going to get a packet of banana seeds this year, perhaps M. sikkimensis. I've never grown them before and have been looking out for seeds which promise to be fairly hardy. The seeds are expensive and I gather you only get 50% germination. If I ever end up with any plants I'd be pleased to trade.
Haven't sent off my order yet, I'm still waiting for my RHS seed allowance to arrive, groan, and have been distracted by other things. Should I be sowing them now?

they really should be sown with bottom heat, i tried my seeds from chilternseeds on a radiator but it was too hot and i did.n't get any germination after 4 months!!!

they are a bit expensive so i wanted to trade instead of by more

Unless you have a really reliable source of fresh seed, Musa species are the very devil to germinate. Prolonged soaking in tepid or warm water over at least 4 or 5 days (changing the water daily) will help remove germination inhibitors present in the seed coat. Germination temperatures need to be between 30 - 35C and the sowing medium must be heat sterilised to kill off any pathogens. The only time I managed to get Musa velutina to germinate was when I had fresh seeds sent with the fruit pulp still on - not particularly pleasant after several days in the post! Stuff in dry packets (that may have been hanging around for months on end) has never worked for me.

Ensete ventricosum is somewhat easier, usually germinating moderately well after a long soak. Temps do not need to be so high - 22-25C will usually give reasonable results. I've not bothered to try E. glaucum ('Snow Banana') because so far, it seems that the seed available is collected from lowland plants, which are very cold intolerant. This species is being touted around by T&M and others as being relatively hardy, but it has proved to be anything but.

To be honest, with truly fresh seed being so difficult to source, it is far better to buy a young healthy plant and grow it on. After a year or two, there will be a regular supply of offsets and unless you are daft-enough like me (leaving pots outside in frosty weather) you'll always have a supply of plants. Koba Koba is a specialist nursery in Somerset that supplies a vast range of species and my experience of them is that quality is excellent. They do mail order, the packaging is good and service is quick and efficient. You can contact them at plants@kobakoba.co.uk Their website is in a bit of a state ATM with many of the links down, but you can still glean some good info and get a tantalising idea of the range of plants available.

Here is a link that might be useful: Koba Koba website

Hi Iam new to this forum, did you manage to find Musa Velutina? if not I purchased one earlier this year from the Urban Jungle I have had it about two months now, and it is going great guns and already has six pups, they have many great bananas, I have also purchased other bananas for a very reasonable price from Amulree exotics, check out their websites if you haven,t already. What other bananas do you grow?
Sharon

last year i had a rather nice basjoo going until it turned
into licorice when my over-wintering went pear-shaped. this year i bought another which is about 4' at the moment. ive
also got a smaller lasiocarpa. nice for the 'jungle look'.
ive read of people saying they have musas survive outside in
uk gardens thru winter with little protection, but it sounds unlikely to me...

i grow musas the basjoos for last 2 years i havnt
protected and they have come through. too big to protect
i have velutina/lasiocarpa /sikkamensis i grow mainly for caterpillers,the velutina fruit every year small red nanas quite easy to germinate when fresh,
the basjoos flower and fruit every year then die but there are plenty of ofsets they take approx 4 years to fruit

My Ensete ventricosum perished last winter, but it's not a particularly hardy variety and I only gave it minimal protection (wrapped it up in fleece). This year I have Musa basjoo and Musella lasiocarpa. However, they are only small so I'll overwinter them indoors. If they're a good size by next autumn, I'll keep them outside but give them better protection (a chickenwire cage stuffed with straw, wrapped with fleece and topped with some sort of lid to keep off the rain.

Every spring I also take offsets from a banana that I have as a houseplant (no idea what variety but definitely not hardy) and plant them out, treating them as annual bedding plants.

your hse plant musa if it has tough leaves
are normaly dwarf
tomcavendish

Thanks for that, Tom. I just googled on dwarf cavendish and I do believe you're right. The "pups" look just like mine, with the maroon mottling. I bought it from Sainsburys three years ago for a fiver - now it's a monster. I bought another banana from Sainsburys last month, for 20p! (They'd forgotten to water it but it soon recovered.) This one seems to be a really dwarf variety - it has small, all-green, wavy leaves unfurling very close to each other on the pseudostem. Another indoor variety, but what a bargain.

Does any one have some fresh seeds,or better, cuttings of that marvellous climbing called'Lapageria rosea??
Thank you in advance
phil

Nice one, Ornata, I always love a bargain!

I've got a very nice banana, shiny leaves like a big canna, red edges, which I bought at Great Dixter in May. It's already been separated into 4 plants. I need to keep them as I have no confidence in overwintering them but I'll probably have swaps next spring. Two of them are in large tubs outdoors. What's the likelihood of them surviving if they are lifted and brought indoors? My experience is that no plant likes surviving the winter with disturbed roots!

There is a forum dedicated to bananas on GardenWeb. I was given a dwarf Cavendish (identified for me by that forum) It has been flourishing for 2 years in an unheated conservatory, but in the south of the UK. Very vigorous, lots of pups. Leaves go rotten and have to be removed frequently, but new ones come up.

The banana forum is great, but it's almost exclusively american and sometimes hard to equate people's experiences with those of us in the UK, with our maritime climate and short growing season.

... Are any other banana growers getting nervous about the approach of winter? There seem to be so many different ways to overwinter plants, from potting them up and bringing them indoors (with all the attendant disease risks from using garden soil as a potting medium), to wrapping them in complicated chicken-wire structures stuffed with straw and topped off with a rain-hat, to digging them up, cutting off all but the newest leaf, cleaning off the roots and storing them in the cellar. I'm not sure what I should be doing.

I like to hedge my bets. I've got some big pots with tender things in, bananas, alocasias, zantedeschias, an insanely vigorous climbing senecio, geraniums, etc. I can't move them so they're going to get a bubble wrap overcoat (the entire pot) gently lagged and lidded with fleece. And something to keep the rain out. If they die, they die.
But I've got cuttings, offsets and smaller potsful that I'll keep in the greenhouse , or even the spare bedroom. I've lost bananas before, at Christmas, when I'm not there to light up the frost-proofing paraffin stove. Que sera, sera!

{{gwi:2116829}}

Here's one of mine overwintered outside last year. It is Musa sikkimensis and is growing in a 75ltr tub. The protracted cold snap in May killed off the main stem but left the three pups which are currently reaching slightly less than 2m tall.

Tucked away there are lots of smaller M. sikkimensis, one multi-stemmed M.basjoo also in 75 ltr tub which also lost the main stem this year, and 10 Dwarf Cavendish but I am having difficulty getting clear shots of these.

Everyone I know seems to have lost the main stems this year and in my case I think this was due to giving the plants too much water as they were in active growth when the late frosts came.

I know you are not interested, but the tall cannas in the foreground are Ambassador struggling in 10ltr pots. Believe it or not there is a small pathway between the cannas and the bananas.
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The bush with the small red flowers under the banana leaves in the second photo is dwarf pomegranate Punica nana with 6ft tall cyperus alternifolia to the left.

I've been given a banana plant without a name. It's quite vigorous - I split it in the spring, and it's nearly filled its new containers. One of them has just started flowering, the flowers look like the ones in Moriati's picture. Can you help me identify it?

Moriati, I've just had a look at your website - my banana plant bears a striking resemblance to your Canna... while the person who gave me the plant frequently does these confident misnomers (she once proudly showed me her hosta which never gets attacked by slugs - it was a bergenia), a friend who'd lived in Africa also identified it as a banana. Are they easily confused? Which one do the red flowers in the photo above belong to?
I'd just like to know what it is so I can read up how to best take care of it. It's a beautiful plant either way!

The tall red cannas top-left are growing from the plum-coloured foliage. This canna was purchased on Ebay last year and i think I have it correctly identified now as 'Ambassado'r, a French heirloom canna. It is very nice and I am building up stocks at the moment.

The red one to the right was purchased from a reputable source as 'Black Knight' but I do not think this is correct whereas the orange canna on the left bought from an amateur grower in France as 'Black Knight' appears true to type.

To answer your question about the banana confusion, well when they are small they can look much the same and there is a canna called banana canna, C. musafolia, that will grow to 3-4metres tall with red flowers.

Canna plants will always grow from fresh new shoots each spring from underground rizomes, whereas the banana grows from a tuber. Bananas mostly will produce new shoots from the base, but we try to keep last years stem alive whenever possible.

hi nice garden pics just thought id say that rare palm seeds is the best place i have found for banana seeds they allways have fresh stock and also lots of other interesting seeds as well

Here is a link that might be useful: rare palm seeds

Musa sikkimensis appears totally hardy in the coastal South West and has thrived here since being planted as a 50cms. high seedling in 2000. It has never been protected and has several thick pseudostems to 3.1m high, which with the foliage means that the plants reach 6m. high and more by mid summer. It is now almost imossible to get up and clean off dead and heavily damaged leaves, but I rather like the wind-lashed, natural effect. My garden is very cramped and it is almost impossible to get a decent depth of field with my current digi, but this gives an idea:

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You can get see part of the cluster of pseudostems behind the 2.2m high Musella lasiocarpa in the lower pic. The Musella is possibly a better alternative to would-be banana growers with very limited space. It develops into a bold, relatively compact clump of erect blue-green leaves to 1.8m. high in full sun or just over 2m. high in shade as shown below:

finaly managed to flower lasiocarpa

http://usera.imagecave.com/toms2/tomNo1/ musa lasiocarpa DSCF0302-copy.jpg

australia
iv just manageg this week to buy lapageria rosea
they have them for sale at a nursery in cornwall

I have fresh seeds of Musa Velutina "Dark Pink" (normal) and "Light Pink" (rare) for trade or sale.

Best Regards

Carlos