Hi, Gman! OMG, so exciting!! We would not have imagined that the plants will produce pups within a 3 gallon pot. LOL! We will definitely give it a try then! 18 gal tub sounds great and will save us some space too. Perhaps even enabling us to get one more. :-) I think Raji Puri is a standard banana plant, correct? So if it can survive within an 18 gal tub, I suppose a dwarf variety would not have a problem then. Looking so forward to having fresh banana fruits right from the garden. :-)

mynxr...I took my family to the outer banks this past summer and as always I look at and mentally study the vegetation / trees etc everywhere I go. While there and being in awe of the amount of salt in the air I got to thinking about fruit trees. I stayed in Hatteras and no way could I see a fruit tree surviving that environment. Farther up (north) past Buxton a bit where some trees with some size start to show up I began looking for fruit trees...anything. even an old apple. I saw nothing. When leaving I searched in every yard etc all the way until I deviated west on 64...again...nothing. After just a few miles on 64 though fruit trees started showing up in yards everywhere..the air was now clear too. Didn't have that foggy haze of salt laden air. I just don't think most fruit trees and especially pommes would survive that salt air. Plus. it seems that coastal soil is pretty devoid of what is necessary to grow a fruit tree. I could be wrong though and am interested in hearing other answers as it had me curious while there. On a different note, I bet you guys go through automobiles in a hurry. Every piece of ferrous metal I seen was terribly rusted, even the A/C unit on my rental was nearly eaten away and it was a model designed for coastal enviroments. I couldn't wait to get that crap washed off my car when I got home. Love it down there though.

Just to further complicate things a bit...then you have root pruning containers. The nursery economics on these are different so you don't see a lot of them but if you can find them you are dealing with a horse of a different color. The problem with many trees (especially the deeper tap rooted ones) is that root will j-hook or circle with traditional containers. Root pruning containers prevent this by air pruning the tap root causing early secondary and tertiary branching. Containers are upsized by about 4" per side when the roots fill the container and the pruning process begins again. You can end up with much bigger more vigorous trees in smaller containers this way. The biggest issue is that while the root system is much more efficient at collecting water and nutrients since there are many more terminal roots, they can only collect it from the area they reach. This means you generally need to provide supplemental water for the first year until the trees are well established and the roots reach well into the native soils. Will all of the above posts are good information that apply to most container grown trees, I just wanted to point out an exception. I've been using a root pruning container system in my basement to start long tap rooted trees indoors under lights in the winter and then keeping them for 1 or 2 growing seasons in larger air pruning pots before planting them. So far, I'm pretty impressed with the results but I only have a few years under my belt.

Heavensabus, Glad to hear your collection is expanding. Most people hear will tell you that one pot size larger is the best because you want the roots to dry out fast to prevent molds or rootrot. I don't always agree with this. My latest additions were my three mango trees. I potted two of them in pots that were quite a bit larger and so far it has worked out well. The mango likes soil that is free draining but they also like to be kept moist. I let my first one dry out and it nearly killed it. I would read up on the surinam cherry and find out what soil conditions it requires. I also would find out the rate of growth. My mangoes are growing fairly fast and that is another reason I potted them in larger pots. I have never been good at the size of the pot when they use the gallon measurement. I go by the diameter also. I hope that helps and I am sure someone here will have experience with the surinam cherry. You could also check the search engine on gardenweb and find usefull info there. I have found tons of info on my potted trees there. Goodluck! Andrew