This article has some good info. It may disappear, so I'm copying the info here.

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20120225/COLUMNISTS/120229684

ASK WENDY

Yes, we have some bananas

By Wendy Wilber
Columnist

Published: Saturday, February 25, 2012 at 6:01 a.m.

Last Modified: Friday, February 24, 2012 at 5:02 p.m.

Q: Our banana plant was burned to the ground in the last freeze. Will we ever have bananas from this plant?

Enlarge

Shop for a banana variety called Orinoco, Ice Cream or Raja Puri
that will grow in North Central Florida. (Courtesy of Wendy Wilber)

A: Bananas are a
beautiful tropical plant, but in North Central Florida you will need a
little skill and a lot of luck to get the delicious fruit. Even the best
gardeners I know have trouble getting their bananas to produce fruit in
our area. It is certainly worth a try, though, since you do get to
enjoy the exotic foliage for the warm months.

To
have success you are going to have to have the right cultivar of
banana, and plant it in a sunny spot that is protected from the north
winds. Shop for a banana variety call Orinoco, Ice Cream or Raja Puri.
They are proven winners for North Central Florida.

You
will need to fertilize and water the banana plant regularly. Use a
6-2-12 fertilizer every two months, and make sure you are irrigating the
plant with at least an inch of water a week.

Bananas
grow best under uniformly warm to hot conditions. Leaves grow best
between 78 and 82 degrees and fruit grows best in the mid-80s. When
temperatures go below 60 degrees, the plant growth slows and then stops
altogether below 50 degrees.

You can see in North Central Florida we have a short window of ideal temperatures to produce banana fruit.

For your freeze-damaged
plant, cut the pseudo stem (banana trunk) back to about 4 feet tall. If
the tree is still alive, a leaf will emerge from the center of the
trunk, and it will continue growing with proper watering and
fertilizing. Next winter use a trick that I picked up from a nurseryman
who grows bananas in Raleigh, N.C. He waits until the top of the banana
plant is frosted and then chops the pseudostem down to about 4 feet.
Then a 4-foot wire fence is installed to encircle the mat of bananas.
The fence circle is filled with chopped leaves all the way to the top.
As the leaves compost they insulate and generate heat to the stems
during the rest of the winter. Because the trunks are preserved at good
height, the plant has less recovery to go through in the spring and you
will have a better chance of getting bananas, instead of no bananas.

For more information about growing bananas in your landscape, check out the UF/IFAS website www.solutionsforyourlife.com or give the Alachua County Master Gardener a call at 955-2402.