I have dwarf cavendish and super dwarf cavendish in pots but only 1 year old so no fruit yet. Its been a real learning experience with them. Mine stay inside most of year but I tried and put outside mid-July to end of Sept and they grew strong and thick pushing out leaves especially after the rain. They looked real healthy when I brought inside and so far so good still pushing out leaves. Fingers crossed on keeping the stem going strong to get fruit in 2017. I hope its not a long winter.

Are you in house or apartment? Whats your sun or outside access like?

So how big would a super dwarf cavendish get? And where I can I buy one of those? I am in a house right now so I can put them outdoors in the summer. Problem is, the only room in my house that gets a lot of sun would be my room which is upstairs. The room downstairs below my room also gets equal amounts of sun but it gets real cold in the winter since that room used to be a deck. So I would have to carry the banana to my room upstairs every fall. So I would really like the super dwarf banana.

Heruga, Logee's has them for sale. As for size, they get to be about 3-4 ft tall. Southern, Eastern, or Western facing window will be fine if that opens up any options. I don't personally have a dwarf Cavendish but have looked into them in the past :)

Found it! Thanks

I got the dwarf from Stark and the super dwarf from surprise!! Home Depot. I should have bought the coco palm they had too.

The super dwarfs are 18in tall now and will start to fruit they say as early as 2 ft. depending on how many leaves on them. The main stem is almost as thick as my wrist with several pups each so as long as it gets thick enough to support the flower I shouldn't have a problem with it fruiting. The leaves can get big so be prepared for them to take over a table or stand, even dwarf it has leaves a foot or more long and 8-12in wide coming out from all sides.

For winter I only have a north facing window so I use my Aerogarden light as main source and a track light. I just set up a warm mist humidifier for my sinuses that they love. In summer they need to be slowly acclimated to the increased light angles we have here ( I got a few scorched leaves early on) but when its muggy they go crazy, I had a mini jungle. Are you close to the water?

Here's photo of plant I gave my friend, bought in Oct 2015 but they couldnt keep alive. Home Depot was $9.99 you can see the spreading leaves unfold in large paddles.

Mine was smaller to begin with, photo from April 2016

They make any room look great.

top one was 2 1/2 feet wide and almost a foot tall when I gave them. They always wanted one and then complained it wouldnt "fit" in spaces of new house, (maybe they let die on purpose).

I'm semi-experimenting with different pots now, one is in growbag, another terracotta, next in plastic with wick and last in larger resin. All are progressing equally with same watering, feeding schedule since Sept. I rotate in place once a week and shuffle around light source every 10-14 days.

Thanks samsaraedu. What kind of potting mix do you use for the bananas? Do you use the 5-1-1 mix? Or something different? Do they need well draining soil or water retaining soil?

Bananas, like many other plants, need high acidity well draining soil... I'm not sure what type exactly.

Yeah they do like the acid with the peat, need well draining and aeration. I use the Dyna-pro 9-3-6 suggested on the board. I did use part of one of the recipes but added some Dr. Earth. Although we get humidity here I still found the pots dried out because of the excessive wind this year. I've tried a couple of different ratios with some pups over the past year and the up-pot in Sept was pretty uniform across the board only difference was pots itself. I have to find where I wrote it down the last formula. If you were closer I could give you the Turface for the mix since I "accidentally" bought the smallest bag the feed store had, its as big as me. Its gonna take me years to finish. But look for bark at an Agway store or reptibark.

Kiliandwarrior- Are you gonna get one too?

What ingredients are in the dyna-pro?

And well they last won't they? You can always use for future pots:)

Sorry Dyna-gro foliage pro 9-3-6 liquid fertilizer.

yeah its just hard to make a dent in this bag, its obnoxiously big but I'll eventually finish it.

What other stuff are you growing? Have you made any of the soil mixes listed before?

I am growing 2 citruses in a pot and used the 5-1-1 mix which consists of 5 parts fir reptibark, and one each of peat moss and perlite. And I use foliage pro for it too

So you're more than halfway home. I used that as a base but increase the perlite, reduce bark and then some Dr. Earth (half soil, half compost) but its just a few handfuls into the mix since they are heavy feeders and the mycorrhizae help, then add tuface, so keeping everything really loose still. I haven't had the best results with straight 511 on bananas or my citrus but I thinks its a regional micro-climate thing. If you pay for postage I could send you the smallest usps box full of turface form my 40lb bag.

Then a friend who has a 15 yr old, 12ft tall "dwarf" fruiting banana in a pot suggested add a little Super Thrive or seaweed every once in a while to the foliage pro watering. Mine responded well to it but I hope it doesn't over ride the dwarf part as it did with hers. I'm supposed to get a piece when she divides hers in spring, so we'll see what the new pup does. I'm excited and scared at the same time.

Ok since I am used to the 5-1-1 mix I think I'll try that out first. And its ok, I won't need any turface at the moment. Thank you for the offer though. Can't wait to order the banana in spring!

Samsaraedu, sorry didn't see your comment. I'm not sure. After reading the comments it seems like a nice little banana to have.

They are fun to see the dwarf grow. We're used to the regular sized ones being big and impressive. But these are kind of mini bite-sized cuties. I'm still amazed at how this little roll sticks up and then unfurls into this huge paddle but overall will remain knee high to a grasshopper.

This is what one of my dwarf cavendish plants looks like after one year. You do need space for them and lots of light in the winter no matter what type of banana.

Matt, so have your bananas fruited yet? Also, I did some research more on the dwarf cavendish bananas and some sources state that they don't produce good fruit... or its really inconsistent. Is that true? Anyone here ever had fruit on the dwarf cavendish or other dwarf bananas that they had a good experience with?

My manzano will put out a bud this year i'm hoping it'll be big enough. Then there's the cavendish. They produce a lot but taste like cardboard I've been told. Other dwarf bananas like rajapuri, dwarf brazilian, dwarf namwah are much better for taste.

cavendish is the type you see in the grocery store

I see.. so then why is cavendish the most popular then?

They are the easiest to get ahold of sold at almost every box store

people think because they're short and produce a lot of bananas it's a good choice. commercially fine but I wouldn't buy another one I have plenty of pups. They choke easily and are the most cold sensitive.

Commercial crop Cavendish replaced Michel after it was attacked by Panama disease back in 1950s and wiped out. Cavendish is now being attacked by a strain of it as well. Perhaps its available to consumers to grow in hopes of having pockets of isolated gene pool which may survive.......or they may not be that smart and just want money from us as we struggle to grow and keep buying more.

Most other bananas which are purported to be more flavorful may have more strict growing conditions and climate reqs, larger height even in dwarf mode, or near impossible to obtain. We don't usually see many of these bananas in supermarkets because they don't store or travel well or consumer request is low to non-existent. Stores want profit not loss from crops they can pick early and false ripen.Sometimes I go to ethnic neighborhoods and find new bananas to try, most recent being a Thai banana that had small seeds in it.

I may have super dwarf cavendish but I figure since I can control soil, nutrients and ripening environment, it just may taste better than the store especially with a "touch of pride" from being home grown thrown in. Cavendish also seems to be a good place to learn before I venture into more exotic variety which can cost 3-5X the price per plant.

For people who live in apartments or over winter inside not dormant, they have to be mindful that banana height is measured by stalk and then you have to add for the canopy of leaves and flower, so my SDC is supposed to be 2-4ft tall and then add 2 more feet for leaves and stalk to get final height of 4-6 ft. and the dwarf cavendish listed at 5-8ft sometimes 10ft, brings it to anywhere between 7-12 feet overall as my friend's is. She explained the measurements to me since she works for a nursery. It hasn't been too much of a problem for her with height etc because she has resources and successfully fruited a few years ago, said they tasted wonderful so she's attempting again this year and I'm following her model. I can only hope my results are close, guess we'll see what they do in the next couple of months before the weather breaks and I know they'll be safely in summer flush.

Thanks guys. So which banana would you recommend me based on these criteria?

1) Has to be dwarf (no more than 6 ft tall from base)

2) Banana fruit is fairly large

3) Fruit is sweet

4) Will reliably fruit and consistent in it

From what I've heard dwarf namwah is a good tasting banana. Since they are measured by p-stem, that is where the flower emerges. 6 or 7 feet for the trunk, the. pot will be about 2 feet tall and wide. The entire plant will be more likely around the 10-11 foot range with the leaves. They are no regular houseplant. It will also take anywhere from 2 to 4 years to see any fruit in our northern zones. Sun, warmth and good feeding, pot size are the main factors to get any fruit here.

Most of my bananas are taller varieties which I will be switching out for dwarf ones this year. If grown in a large enough container and given the right conditions you can easily see fruit in a few years.

Here is the manzano - This has been actively growing for 10 or 11 months now

zone 5b

Hmm... is there anything that will start producing fruit within 1 year? I don't have the patience to wait that long to get fruits

Only if you lived in zone 9b or higher :(

Oh ok.. well then I guess as a starter I will try out with the dwarf cavendish banana. Or lady fingers.. which one has larger fruit size?

dwarf cavendish have bigger fruit

I was told my SDC would have to grow 18months then flower and after that it will produced ever 12 months because of the pups/corm/root development. I guess you could splurge and buy something well developed, maybe? I see logees has offerings of plants with fruit on sometimes but they may limit to local pickup as well as being 40-70% more expensive and you could still have transportation and transplant shock.

All fruit is a waiting game in zone 7 whether traditional berries, apples etc or more tropical stuff. How long has it taken your citrus to fruit?

Yes but that is in tropical places near the equator. Older banana plants don't always transplant well and have to regrow roots and leaves but yes that is a way to get fruit sooner. Who's citrus is that?

OP said he has citrus experience so I was just wondering.

sorry but who is OP? Citrus is pretty easy if you heaven't tried :) great success with grapefruit and lemons. Anything you want to know?

Ok I guess I'll have to wait and be patient until it fruits. It feels more rewarding too after all that time you've waited. OP stands for original poster, which would be me. I only got my 2 citrus a month ago so it didn't fruit yet. I'm still in the process of learning citrus growing too

oh very cool! What do you have?? & Thank you for clearing that up!

I've got a yuzu and a satsuma mandarin tree. I also have a sudachi tree that I've had for about 4 years now. But its mainly my dad who took care of the sudachi tree. I only recently got into citrus growing lol

The beauty and torture of fruit growing, its definitely a love-hate relationship.

I hate winter but have learned to tolerate it since my pears, apples and berries need chilling hours to produce. I know I'm banging my head against the wall when I seek out exotic fruit to taste and then try to sprout seeds or buy a plant, but I cant stop myself.

So since misery loves company Heruga, I'll let you know when I separate the next SDC pups so you can have one.

did the super dwarf cavendish fruit for anyone? Can u please share the photo?