LOL Too funny. It looks just like mine did 2 years ago but, mine had Spider Mites too. It had nothing to do with lack of water here at my house. I think it was mostly lack of humidity and decent light. The Mites didn't help. Anyhow, to make matters worse I did split it up before it started new growth. They seemed OK for a few weeks. Then, I decided to plant them outside in mid spring while the tempertures were well about freezing but, cool at night. I lost them all. Grin and bare it, I don't think theres too much you can do for it in PA this time of year. Just wait longer than I did to put them outside. They will take right off as soon as you get those warm days. They love heat and sun. Theres no easy way to make it happy right now. Danny

You'll never get Ice Cream to fruit, of course, in Zone 6, but it's theoretically possible for the mat to survive. Problem in Z6 is that your growing season is so short, the bananas won't be able to grow enough to form a solid mat before frost...and it's the size/thickness of the mat that contributes to cold hardiness. You could improve your chances by mulching heavily, and possibly even throwing a heating cable over the spot to keep the ground from freezing on exceptionally cold nights. Even here in Z8a, getting a trunk to overwinter and continue growing/blooming in the spring is a crap shoot. Some made it this year, but the mat is mostly sending out pups again. I'm doubtful I'll get a bloom by July 1st -- which is about the latest to get ripe fruit before frost. -Bruce

Hey there, Pappy What you are seeing in the banana is the fruiting (female) flowers/fruit, the bare spot is the androgynous (non-fruiting) flowers (they fall off) followed by the male flowers (also non-fruiting). Many people have recommended removing the rest of the flower stalk after the the female flowers have quit, but I found this lead to stem end rot (also called cigar rot). I found that I have better luck not cutting them off. As to ripening, after the weather gets colder than 55 degrees, the plants go dormant. My own experience has been that over-wintering fruit MAY mature when the weather warms back up in spring, but the quality is horrible. They are hard, grainy, and not worth the effort. I am in an area that never freezes, so the pups will be the main stalks the next year. I have generally cut the main flowering stem back to near the ground to shift the growth into the largest pup, and hopefully it will get a chance to mature fruit the following year by getting a jum on the growing season. Fast maturing varieties (generally the shorter varieties) give me the most chance of success. My most productive varieties were Enano Gigantes which seemed identical to one I got labeled as Mexican Dwarf. My original plantings was 12 varieties, and only 3 of those showed real promise. Our El Nino rains some years ago drowned all of them with 3 months of heavy rain (we have a hard pan substrata, and they plants were water-logged and just didn't survive. I have tried to find the Gigantes again, but after Doug's Banana farm in Carpenteria got buried in a landslide, they are not generally available. @ years ago, I acquired another 12 or 13 varieties. Of these, the ones I got labeled 'Dwarf Brazilian' (a Cavendish type) have been the only ones to produce fruit, and they started to flower too late in the year. Pups from these were previously removed and are in different states of growth, so hopefully, some of these will get with the program earlier in the year while there is enough growing season to ripen before the cool weather hits next year. I added a link to some photos of the Dwarf Brazilian flowering on Flickr... Here is a link that might be useful: My photos on Flickr

Doug -- It's yours. I went out to look at it this afternoon, and it's bigger than I gave it credit for. Probably 2 feet across. It's a handsome plant, but it's already getting too big for me -- and it's only gonna get bigger! I tell ya what, though -- I'm not gonna bring it to the swap. Too annoying (pointy!) to deal with along with all the other plants. I'll bring it over to your house in the next week or two. Jeff -- They have a huge one of these over at UT -- and it makes lots of pups. Mine didn't come from there, but if I have a chance to score a pup or two one of these days, I'll keep you in mind. :-)