I had it in the shade in the back yard, shaded by the huge oak trees since I got it. Someone told me it needed to be in full sun to develop color, might have been them. So, I moved it up front in the nearly full sun for the past month, and it is the way you see it. It didn't really start to grow until it was pu in full sun. Same with my ALL GREEN nancy's revenge ee I just gave away. I don't need any more simple green alocasias, I just don't have the room. They told me it needed to get larger to display the color....well I grew it out, wasted my time since I purchased it, and it never changed. If they are mostly reliable, then something went very wrong with my order, and they didn't want to hear anything about it. Bad business in my book. http://banana-plants.com/ were great, fast shipping, great packing, great plants ***** bananaplantation.biz unusual packing with the pots and soil, some plants looked better than others, they were WAY smaller than advertised, the promptly rectified the problem by RESENDING THE ENTIRE ORDER AT NO COST ***** That's the way to do business. I don't expect things to go right all the time, but make AN ATTEMPT to fix the problem.

I agree, it will grow MUCH better in the ground. I have one here in WI, I have to bring it in for winter, but it's planted in the ground during the growing season. I LOVE it! We don't have a long enough growing season for it to flower/fruit, but from what I have read, they die after they do so....so not sure you want it to!

Agri starts is the main supplier in the US, but you'll need a nursery license number to order. It would be cool if someone started tissue culturing some of the rare (and difficult to sprout) Ensetes like E.perrieri, E.superbum(Thailand), E.ventricosum montibelleri, and that E.ventricosum 'Red Stripe' that's from South Africa(and sold in So California).

I started one from seed last March. Put it in a pot on the deck for the summer, and it grew to about four feet high. I didn't really have cool enough storage in my basement, so I am trying to over winter as a houseplant, north kitchen window and drastically reduced watering. I've been watering it sparingly and not very regularly, so I'm surprised mine hasn't dried out to the point of 'drooping' at one point. Not only is ensete fast growing, apparently it keeps growing in the cool autumn weather after other "bananas" stop. I hope to overwinter mine as I read that they just keep getting bigger and better each year (versus having to restart new plants from seed). Dbrya, in your picture is the plant on the right a different type of ensete, perhaps the 'maurelli' one that has more reddish type of foliage? I ordered seeds for new plants off ebay and though it didn't say 'maurelli', it did say 'red abyssinian banana). Glen