That's so sad! I hope you had a talk with the gardeners about it. I had to finally go to my manager here about the yard crew destroying my flower beds. They leave them be now, but it was a fight at first.

Bananas only flower once and then they send up pups, lots of them.

I finally had to tell my lawn guys to not trim anything, they made such a mess.

Thank you all for your responses. I plan to leave the momma plant until a couple healthy pups have several leaves and will then cut it down.

I've been trying to cut down this large banana tree that's growing too close to the house. I've completely cut it down two or three times (look closely at the base) then I forgot about it for the last three weeks. Looked at it today and not only does it continue to grow out of the middle of the trunk, but it's actually put out a banana flower! This thing refuses to die!

J636 the best thing u can do is dig it up

It might be possible that a new pup grew up through the trunk of an older plant. Might explain it. Awesome that you got a flower though. I agree though, you would have to remove the rhizome to prevent future growth.

I've got my yard guys afraid to do anything outside the norm! So things that I think are obvious (trim plants growing over pathway) I have to ask them to do it. As it is they are not allowed to use the weed eater in the back yard as they have ruined pots and potted plants. So I don't really mind telling them to take off the dead palm fronds etc. They are pretty good about staying off my s-list! hehe.

Someone may have taken the flower for food. Banana flowers ... well the hearts mostly ... make a great salad. The dressing is similar to a Thai green papaya salad dressing. I think they can be used cooked as well. My neighbor has five flowering banana trees and is getting ready to cut two stalks of bananas and is going to give me the flowers to make salads with. Yummy.

I hired a man to help me with yard work one time and he took it upon himself to trim all the lower limbs from my grapefruit tree so we could walk under it. He said it would be easier for me to mow now that the limbs weren't in the way. I was furious and told him not to cut one darn thing ever again. I like lower limbs for the ease of getting fruit and for privacy. It's insane what people will do if you don't supervise their every move. They do what they would want ... not what we (the folks who hired them) want!

Joenamath636, I could never cut a flower like that down ! Why not just let it grow

and see what happens ? Have been growing these guys for 16 yrs and never saw anything like that. Let it do it's thing if you can. ( smile )

Yeah, Jofus, I'm with you. I can't cut it down now. This unnamed variety makes the tastiest bananas!

these people must be lawn care people. Surely a real gardener would know better.

After the fruit emerges we cut them off and my wife takes them to a Vietnemese friend of hers who cooks them traditionally. I've never had the dish, but she says it's delicious.

4 of my bananas have fruit this summer. Two shorter varieties and 2 taller. Hopefully they will make it by frost this year.