|
Living in Central and South Florida gives one the ability to grow things that most of us normally do not get to even consider trying.
My sister-in-law is an avid gardener who usually has some very special things growing in her small garden. One of them is bananas. I can remember she grew them when she lived in a single family residence with a nice yard and even now in her ground floor condo she has an alcove garden space that allows her to continue to grow things.
Banana plants do not like windy areas so she has always had a nice corner spot out of the wind where her banana plants or trees grow. They like warm weather that is fairly uniform between 78 to 82 degrees Fahrenheit which is best for shoot growth and the fruit does well at 84 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit.
She makes sure they are in full sun even though she finds a windless area. Bananas like full sun and they cannot tolerate flooding or lots of water so she knows just how much water to give them.
Mostly she uses these bananas for landscaping decorations because the plant grows tall, the bark on the trunk like structures grow and form with concentric layers of leaf sheaths and the leaves make for really great forms in her garden.
Her bananas then reward her with small hands of fruit that can be eaten and it is kind of exciting to eat a banana from one’s own tree.
Bananas are fast-growing herbaceous perennials arising from underground rhizomes and they come back each year. She knows she is getting bananas when her tree grows a large long oval purple bud which then opens up showing slim tubular flowers clustered in whorled double rows that with each cluster covered with a thick waxy hood like bract that is deep red inside and purple outside. The first 5 to 15 rows of flowers are females and as they continue to elongate some become abortive females and some males eventually with the two latter flowers types eventually becoming fruit or hands of bananas.
You can buy ready to grow corms since bananas are rhizomes and you do not need a garden as you can grow them in large containers. Bananas will die back in the winter and my neighbor down the road here in zone 6 in Kentucky has a line of them as a fence and they grow back every spring.
You can even grow bananas inside providing you grow a dwarf variety.
|
Author Bio Box: Arlene Wright Correll
 For more gardening or cooking information click http://www.learn-america.com/
To see Arlene’s Gardens and to read her gardening diaries and to take a walk through her pictorial garden or click on Arlene’s Books where you can download or buy her gardening & cook books, including her new book, “The ABC’s of Wine and Beer Making”. Remember to check out her artwork, especially of her fruits and vegetables. Arlene says, “All my royalties from the sale of my books go to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and I thank you for visiting my site.”
Didn't really find what you were looking for?
|
|
|
| |
|
|
![[Valid RSS feed]](images/rss.gif "Subscribe to our XML Feed for RSS")
(Read 100+ times)
