Banana tree finally making bananas!
We just got back to Los Angeles from Palm Springs area and was pleasantly surprised to see my banana tree finally making bananas!
My neighbor, who has been watering plants for me while we were in Cathedral City notified me that it was blooming, but she didn't tell me it was already making bananas. I can count 20 bananas at the top, but the lower hands will be smaller. It's supposed to be an ice cream banana tree, and I bought it from Marina Del Rey Garden Center, which I consider to be reputable.
I'm not expecting anything like we saw on the farm in Fiji
because my tree is a dwarf, as I do not think I have room for a huge tree, although we did have a banana tree for many years that was not a dwarf but did not make bananas. Therefore after about seven years I got rid of it and replaced it with a white sapote, which is now making lots of fruit. The dwarf banana tree I have now is growing in a whiskey barrel planter. I am now considering planting it in the ground, as a banana tree did well there before.
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plllog
3 years agoLars
3 years agoLars
3 years agolast modified: 3 years ago
Richard (Vero Beach, Florida)
3 years agoI have some that supposed to be "Ice Cream" banana plants. I don't know much about them so I can only assume they really are.
They're far from dwarfs though. The stalk are get 12 inches or more in diameter. The stalks, 12 feet or more. Probably more because there's no way I can reach the bananas to harvest them. The leaves that stick up probably reach 20 foot.
The fruit is smallish but very tasty. (Party/mostly because they're allowed to ripen naturally?)
I just took a much too dark picture to try to show size.
For scale, the pups on the right are about 4 foot tall.
Lars thanked Richard (Vero Beach, Florida)Lars
3 years agoI've been making sorbet from frozen fruit in the blender since 1986, and my favorite fruit for this is cantaloupe. I generally add frozen bananas to smoothies that I make. I freeze the bananas without peeling them, and then when I want to use them, I submerge them in warm water for a couple of minutes, which allows them to be peeled easily.
Annie, my father tried to grow cherries in Texas, but it does not get cold enough in the winter for them to make fruit properly.
Here's a photo of my previous banana tree, which never made fruit
It made plenty of pups but always stayed leggy and never made any flowers or fruit. It was supposed to be a dwarf Cavendish, but it was neither dwarf nor Cavendish. I kept it for five years and then gave up on it, as it made too many pups and no fruit.
Lars
3 years agoI'm trying to find out if squirrels, possums, or raccoons might try to eat the bananas. There is a white sapote tree next to the banana tree that has lots of fruit on it, and so they should eat that instead - it has a very thin peel. I'm considering putting some sort of netting over it - I did that with pineapples.
I had this in a pot in my back yard, and I had to put netting over it as it got ripe.
Lars
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoLars
3 years ago
2ManyDiversions
3 years agoLars
3 years agolast modified: 3 years agoLars
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Lynda (Zn9b/23 - Central CA Coast)