Bananas are fast-growing herbaceous perennials arising from underground rhizomes. The fleshy stalks or pseudostems formed by upright concentric layers of leaf sheaths constitute the functional trunks. The true stem begins as an underground corm which grows upwards, pushing its way out through the centre of the stalk 10-15 months after planting, eventually producing the terminal inflorescence which will later bear the fruit. Each stalk produces one huge flower cluster and then dies. New stalks then grow from the rhizome. The plant requires plentiful water and regular fertilising. It prefers a slightly alkaline soil. It is best to allow two plants to fruit and have two replacements coming on. Remove all other suckers that develop. Of course, it likes the heat and full sun! It's best to have at least 2, and preferably more banana plants for best results. Banana bunches are harvested when the fruits are fully developed, when the angles are becoming less prominent and the fruits on the upper hands are changing to light green; and the flower remnants (styles) are easily rubbed off the tips. Generally, this stage is reached 75-80 days after the opening of the first hand. Blue bags protect bananas against the ravages of light hail, wind damage and certain types of insects. Research has showed that blue is best for the fruit. Some good information at this site: http://www.tropicalpermaculture.com/growing-bananas.html There are some interesting pix at the site below. Here is a link that might be useful: banana growing

Passiflora grows fast as a vine,and makes very pretty flowers. Mine is already coming back up( I live in Alabama)and the vine Is very easy to grow if you plant(maybe in containers)and water it. Butterflies like it,and Frittilary butterfly caterpillars eat the leaves. Find out if it(also the butterfly)is locally available. Also,the old style(blue"Crown-of-Thorns"flower) is the type of Passiflora I have here.It is pretty tough and reliable. DD

I am confused by the original posting. If you are interested in tropicals or subtropicals that get protected over the winter (inside), there are lots of possibilities ('Elephant Ears'/Colocasia, plumeria, Canna, and others). If you are going to leave them out out, unprotected (in the ground), there are some subtropicals that will survive in Zone 7, but are you thinking about primarily fruiting plants or any subtropicals? Among tropical fruits, mangos will never survive, but loquats, figs, pomegranate and kiwi will. In fact, in my zone 7, kiwi proved to be SOOO vigorous that I ended up having to rip them out as the vines were beginning to INVADE the neighbors' yard (it's and extremely vigorous wine)

Chloe, I'm about 18 miles from the coast. I have two white Bower vines, which I planted in early May. One is against the wall I'm trying to hide, receiving about 3 hours of sun a day, the other one is against a wall that gets sun all morning until about 2:00 PM. Both vines are growing pretty much at the same rate and both survived the 115F heatwave we've got a few weeks ago with almost no damage. They have grown by a third, I would say since May. I don't know if that's considered fast growing. I've been given them SuperThrive every couple of weeks and watch their leaves closely (I find that's a good too-much-too-little-water indicator. I've also planted oleanders in the same areas (sunny and not as sunny) and they are growing at different rates. The ones receiving less sun seem to be growing slower than the others but they all have flowers. I guess I could plant more oleanders and Bower vines but I think I'd like a bit more variety. Been reading about pink trumpet vine. It's lovely and does tolerate partial shade and it's a fast grower. A good candidate, I guess. A volunteer Cape honeysuckle is growing outside the backyard fence. That plant is amazing. It can grow in such harsh conditions. Full sun all day and almost no water. About the wisteria, there's the Chinese variety that grows very fast but I've been told not to use it near buildings because of how uncontrollable it normally gets. And the potato vine I purchased and planted in late spring was decimated by some nasty caterpillar. I tried everything (sprays, powders, store-bought and homemade) and nothing. The vine was growing gloriously. It hadn't produced any flowers but the foliage was splendid and then, almost overnight, most of its leaves had been completely chewed up.