How to Grow and Care for Banana Plants

You may think that bananas grow on trees. They don't. Bananas grow on the largest herbaceous flowering plants in the world, not trees. Some banana plant varieties grow as tall as 10 feet high, but you can find many cultivars that are smaller. You can even grow some smaller varieties as indoor plants.

Banana plants thrive in tropical climates. Even with cold hardy varieties, the plants are sensitive to frost and freezing temperatures. Frosts kill the leaves and sub-freezing temperatures cause dieback all the way to the ground. The plants regrow from the ground each year when warm weather returns.

There's more than 1,000 varieties of bananas. If you're eating a banana from a grocery store, it's likely a Cavendish variety. In some Garden Centers and online, look for dwarf Cavendish banana plants to grow at home.

More varieties of banana plants to look for:

• "Ice Cream" banana peel grows up to 10 feet high and yields tasty fruit with blue peels.
• "Pink Velvet" banana (Musa velutina) fruits with bright pink peel. Variety is edible, but contains lots of seeds.
• Japanese fiber banana (Musa basjoo) is cold-hardy to zone 5. To tolerate the cold, this banana needs to be well-mulched. It's not an edible variety, however.
• Another non-edible variety for cold hardiness is black Thai (Musa balbisiana).
• Abyssinian banana is not a true banana plant, but can be grown as an ornamental plant with tropical banana-like foliage.

Tip: Although they're tropical plants and thrive in hardiness zones 8 to 11, some varieties can handle colder temperatures and bounce back. Read plant tags and online product info to find the best banana plant for your zone.

Plant bananas in moist, rich soil in a full sun location protected from wind. If your soil is sandy, for example, like in Florida, fertilize frequently for maximum growth and production.

When planting in a container, choose a large planter, at least 20 inches wide and deep, and fill with a good quality, well-draining potting mix. Add perlite or sand to help with drainage.

Steps to Planting Bananas in Containers:

• Select a large planter, no smaller than 20 inches wide and deep. Make sure it has drainage holes.
• Fill planter with potting soil. Ideal potting soil is slightly acidic, and well-draining.
• Place banana plant in soil so that crown is sitting slightly above the soil level. Fill in with soil around the base of the tree.
• Planter caddies are useful for moving containerized banana plants indoors and outdoors.

When planting in your landscape, ornamental varieties can be placed as close as two to three feet from each other. Fruit producing bananas should be 8 to 10 feet apart.

High winds can shred banana leaves, making for an unattractive plant. Along with rain-soaked soil and heavy fruit, banana trees can be knocked down. If you live in a windy climate, be sure to support banana plants that are planted in ground.

Experts recommend fertilizing banana plants with 6-2-12 fertilizer every other month and increasing applications when plants are flowering and fruiting.

Bananas need one- to one-and-1/2 inches water each week that they don't get rain. Without adequate water, fruiting bananas will yield small fruit or low harvests. Be mindful of overwatering bananas, as well. Bananas don't like overly wet soil.

Maintenance tips for fruit production:

• Bananas have a rhizomatous root system that sends up new stalks each year. For best fruiting, limit the plant to at most three to four stalks of differing ages.
• The oldest, tallest banana plant stalk should be flowering and fruiting.
• The next should be about half the size of the first stalk.
• The final stalks can be plants that are six inches to three feet tall.

Banana plants can be susceptible to pests and diseases. Learn to look for signs of nematode damage, spider mites or fusarium wilt. Black Sigatoka is a fungal leaf spot disease that interferes with fruit production. Fungicides can help treat the disease, but the best control method is to buy cultivars that are resistant to Black Sigatoka disease. Read plant labels to determine disease resistance.

If you're in a hardiness zone colder than 7, protect banana plants' roots during winter with a few inches of mulch. If the plant is in a container, move it into a sheltered location like a garage or basement with indirect light and wrap the base of the pot with a blanket or foam padding.

When you move plants indoors, reduce the foliage. When you return the plant to the outdoors, trim the foliage again to stimulate new growth.

If you're keeping banana plants in-ground outdoors, make sure they're planted in well-draining soil and protected from wind. After the first frost, cut leaves down to two feet. Make a cage with chicken wire or netting and encircle the plant. Fill the cage with leaves and straw to cover the plant. You can top the cage with a tarp. Keep the banana plant covered until nighttime temperatures return to at least 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

When you're growing an edible variety of banana, you'll probably want to harvest the fruit a week or two before it's fully ripe. Look for the fruit to meet the mature size for the variety.

When harvesting bananas, cut the fruit from the tree and hang the bunch in a cool, shady place to ripen. Refrigeration stalls the ripening process; for this reason, it's best to store bananas at room temperature.

Tip: Harvest unripe bananas while they're green and use like plantains.