First off, Midwest summers are anything but cool and cloudy. You may be confusing Ohio for the Pacific Northwest. They tend to be hot and sometimes very dry. 80s is typical, 90s are not uncommon. I have a Dwarf Orinoco in ground here in Southeast Michigan zone 6b. It has come back as a perennial for at least the last 6 years. It gets up to about 6-7 feet tall every year, but I have never seen any indication that it was going to fruit. Maybe in an unusually warm year it would, where first frost wasn't until December, but our frosts here usually happen late October into November. Mine doesn't seem affected by moderate frost, but we just had a heavy frost/hard freeze two nights ago with temps down to 23, and that did it in. I would say this banana is your best bet for fruit in your zone, but probably won't produce fruit if grown as a perennial, unless you go to some elaborate protection method of the pseudostem, which is a possibility. It definitely is a cold hardy variety that most people don't consider growing because they don't know it's limits. BTW...mine is planted against the foundation, which probably helps it to survive reliably.

Well, let's see... the daffs, crocuses, hellebores, anemones, scilla that were all blooming are now under about 6" of snow. I can barely see the tops of the tulips that were about to bloom. The irises are still above the snow line, and I'm not worried about the tips of hostas and peonies that are now buried (I think the cold weather last week hurt those more than the snow). I wonder how this cold/snow will effect the spring blooming shrubs...forsythia and spirea, and the columbine, bleeding hearts and other perennials that were just starting to show true leaves.

I think your Goldfingers will be fine,..but am always optimistic. I have been growing Goldfingers here for about 3 years, have yet to eat even oney but that's my fault entirely,..long story. I grew them in the Upper Keys before relocating here and they were amazing,..fast growing and tall ! But that was the Keys,..here they don't grow as fast so have added two 5 ft tall Ice Creams to my raised bed plantation six weeks ago. I do have three 3 stalks of Goldfingers hanging down and slooowwwly ripening,..one for 3 1/2 months the last 2 for only 3 weeks. If the temps do drop drastically however, I would simply wrap a thick large towel around each Mama stalk, attached with some Teflon tie wraps and hope for the best. Am on the 9b/10a border, so don't think I'll have to do that. As these Goldfingers grow I will be thinning out the baby pups and eventually wind up with only the faster maturing Ice Creams. Am convinced that's the way to go,..for me anyway. If I was still in the Keys it'd be solely Goldfingers, - love 'em but here they grow too slow. Just my 2 cents ! Good luck.

Another temp drop tonight. It was interesting to me to note that we had so much rain Friday and yet it is taking until today for the temps to drop. Normally for our winters, the rain comes at the very head of a cold front with temps dropping almost as soon as the rain stops, but instead we, my area at least, had a fair bit of rain Friday, a fair bit of sun and relative warmth Saturday and now today the temps are already (10 am) dropping. The temps for my area are supposed to stabilize around noon and then continue dropping around 3, so I am going to let the sun warm all that saturated soil for as long as possible before putting up the covers to trap the heat. As strange and unusual as this winter has been, it is a bit of relief for me as I took a page from Leu Gardens's book and planted a Monstera deliciosa under an oak tree (on the east side so the winds are buffeted by the trunk of the tree). The warm rains and warming sun are giving it fair chances of surviving its first year in the ground without any extra protection from me. I also put some rooted wild coffee cuttings under that tree hoping that the canopy will will protect them enough to allow them to thrive. They can be a little iffy here and might die back a bit under a hard frost, but I am testing and playing with micro-climates. This strangely warm first winter should make it so that all the plants will be stronger and quite established for future cooler winters.