If not already mentioned here take look at the banana forum which has a lot of members in Florida. Probably the best place to obtain banana information since banana growing is what they do. I have one ice cream banana plant. I had it too shaded for years and last year removed some of the shade and it has started to grow. I kept the stem alive through our recent hard winter and it grew a pup this year which is still growing and becoming quite large. I have not yet asked if it is necessary to move the pups or what. Several of my friends have their bananas growing in clumps and seem to only remove the pups when they want to propagate. They are not interested in the appearances. I am hoping for a fruiting stem to appear even though it is too late for fruit maturity to occur prior to our first frost.

I have a Male and a Female Sago both about 4 feet tall. Both of them regularly (more from the male) sprout "Pups". I take a sharp spade (small shovel) and get as close to the parent plant as possible and then put pressure until the Pup pops off. When we vacation, I have sometimes had to remove up to 20 or more pups from the male sago. The wounds always heal with no care and the parent plants always do fine after. The males trunk is a little deformed from all the surgeries to remove pups :) Difference between male and female..... Males have a large pollen stalk that grows out of the center - later dries up and falls off. Females have what looks like a large pregnant belly that is holding all of the red seed pods. This belly opens up and has TONS of seeds!! These eventually move to the bottom as more fronds grow and then they fall on the ground. Here are pictures of the male and female plants.....

It may yet reward you with a nice plant, keep it in clean water for now till the roots grow past the stem anyway. Try to keep it 70 degrees or higher if you can. Keep checking it. The leaves at their base look healthy. Fred when Rooted the tops in Florida (so long ago now), I cut the top row of fruit off and plunked it down in the water. The fruit always rotted away, you had to change the putrid water every day, which usually was so bad it would start to foam slightly. That is the way you did it back then, of course it was always 80 degrees or higher with 80% humidity. But it worked! The only trouble I ever had was with the dratted squirrels eating chunks out of the ripening fruit! 3 years of waiting and then some scurvy grey squirrel eats the very first spot to ripen and the whole fruit then rots!

Honoree I was just wondering what your reasoning was - and obviously, you should do as you please :) I often wonder why ppl do certain things - there could be a good reason for it, and maybe I can learn something new. If the plant is growing in 'weird' way (and the way it shouldn't), there is usually a reason for it. Very often it is lack of light. Cutting - beheading can help, but it doesn't make sense if the lighting situation stays the same. Some plants can be very weak after bringing home from a store: over- or under-watered, lack of light, maybe a pest or disease, bad soil. It should be inspected, most likely repotted ASAP. If there is a pest, they should be treated right away. If there is rot, it needs to be taken care of right away too - often, it needs to be cut and sometimes drastically. Etiolation can't be reversed, and sometimes plant needs to be cut too (see above re: beheading). Separating, propagating and so on is best done when pups are big enough; if the plant is overcrowded and obviously having more of the same plants. But it may be a good idea first to make sure the plant is healthy and strong, and the results will be better. And some plants look best when hey grow in clumps - but that is also a personal preference. And, there is a better time of year to propagate and not so 'best' time - and I am talking about what is best for the plant, not the grower. We all get quite anxious - I have bare rooted and defoliated plants in end of December and they didn't die - but I would not make it a practice. These are just my opinions, and not everyone will see it the same way - and that is OK :)