Last year I mail-ordered a banana corm through an online website. While I waited for it to arrive, I began to look up info on how to cultivate bananas hydroponically, but the information was sketchy at best. Luckily, I ran into an article from a few years back and decided to follow a grow schedule tailored to jump start my little seedling into maturity.
Day 1:
My seedling arrived on November 16, 2008, and I got to the task of rooting it & preparing it for vegetative growth. The banana cutting was placed into a 6″ square planter, in a small core of coir & perlite (3:1), surrounded by LECA (lightweight expanded clay aggregate, or clay pellets). The planter was then submerged into a second square plastic container (the kind used to pack potato salad); it would sit into this container, which would be half-full of a mild nutrient solution (GH’s MaxiGro @ 1/4 tsp/gal, increased by 1/4 tsp every two weeks for a maximum nutrient strength of up to 1 tsp/gal ). An air stone was placed underneath the planter, effectively aerating the nutrient solution and aiding its dispersal through the maze of clay pebbles, up to the cutting’s delicate root system. It was placed under a 42-w compact fluorescent lamp, on a 18-6 photoperiod. Its initial rate of growth was simply amazing!
Banana cutting: day 2
Banana cutting: day 4
Banana cutting: day 10
Banana cutting: day 43
Banana cutting: day 63
Banana cutting: day 105
Banana cutting: day 148
Day 48: banana plant leaf
Day 48: banana plant trunk
Banana cutting: day 154
Day 154: first pup & Dwarf Cavendish, in deep water culture and continuous drip ring.
Day 164: Look at that leaf touching the ceiling. It hasn't even unfurled & it's already out of room. I am really at a loss here, because it's not even time for it to begin its flowering cycle yet, & that's when it will really start to shoot upwards! Dwarf banana my ass!
Day 165: The top 5 inches had to be "amputated". Bushmaster was added & nutrients cut back to 2/3. It continued to grow until it reached the ceiling again. Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.
Banana cutting: day 165
Banana cutting: day 167
Day 185: After being "bushmastered" & moved to a shadier location, leaf growth time has decreased by 50%; now it takes 2 weeks per leaf. The bottom leaves have stayed on longer than usual & are beginning to discolor.
These suckers would grow into individual trees if I could just divide them, but the roots are too packed-in to do it safely. Having no space to grow roots of their own, these pups are destined to perish unless I get any new ideas. Fat chance.
Root-bound! The banana tree's rhizosphere already encompasses 5 gallons' worth of space! It is still difficult to tell what is tisue necrosis & what is liquid seaweed residue.
Day 189: After my banana tree became root-bound, I knew I had to take it out of its 5-gallon bucket. In order to do so, first I had to cut the net pot lid.
Upon close inspection of the net pot, I discovered that the roots had already torn through the net pot & it had a fissure on both sides that ran all the way down to its base. The only thing keeping it from collapsing was the lid I had just cut.
Root damage was kept minimal by not attempting to remove the already-cracked net pot. The two roots that came off were diseased at the base & that's why they snapped off during the lid cutting. It was with these EMT shears that I was able to cut through the thick plastic lid. Can you believe that those shears are 19 years old? & still cutting like the 1st day I got'em!
Voila! The tree was transplanted into a 10-gallon pot which contains a mixture of 33% coco coir, 33% Premier starter pro-mix, 33% perlite & 1% wishful thinking. Three bamboo stakes were added to wedge the net pot in place & (hopefully) serve as support while the roots find their way around the pot once more.
Day 197: Nine days post-transplant & the mistress is lookin' good. (whew!)
Day 205: Thank God for Velcro! The mistress was beginning to tip toward one side. These velcro straps came in so handy! A big "thank you" to Chris @ Garden Indoors of Pennsylvania (www.gardenindoorsllc.com) for contributing to the cause with great product selection & unparalleled insight on all things horticultural.
Banana cutting: day 212
Banana cutting: day 305 & healthy!
Very cool! I want one!
d00d, this blog rules… i’m cheesin out on this hard.
it’s already this big, and you said it puts on more height when it’s flowered?!
how long ’til you get a banana?
It’s ready to bloom, all it needs is high humidity & temps between 80-95 F for ~3 months; that usually triggers flowering. Then it takes another 6 months for the fruit to grow & ripen. This tree will not flower unless i jack up the humidity & heat inside the apartment. If I do that, mold will set in faster than the bananas will. I might take her out come late spring–i have a pup rooting that could replace her if things went south outdoors.
Ohhh, pretty!
You got me hooked, I just picked up 5 different varieties in the hopes that at least one kind does well in my environment.
Wish me luck!
I can confirm the growth rate for banana trees. I live in Houston, TX and had a neighbors tree shoot a pup up under my fence. In our humid climate, we have to mow the lawn each week from early March through late October. Because the tree was literally pulling the fence apart, I couldn’t allow it to grow.
Each week, I had to go out with a saw and cut the thing down! No amount of weedeating or munching with the lawnmower would take it out. I hated cutting the thing, but it was necessary. I used a drywall keyhole saw to rip right through the fleshy base of the plant, and each week I was truly surprised at how persistant the tree was on growing. I moved from that home last May, and I imagine it’s a full size tree now and that the neighbors are paying for a new fence!
How did you dwarf cavendish winter? I had the same problem with a 5 gallon size a couple years ago. I just got the fever again and bought larger banana genetics and thinking 20 gallon or maybe even 32 gallon trashcans to account for 10 – 15′ trees. Have you put one outside? I put my dwarf cavendish out for the summer and it went absolutely crazy and almost broke the 5 gal bucket!
I still have pups from that are in soil to keep them subdued but ready to try to get one 20′ tall. hahah
Damn they’re hungry…
It wintered quite well, considering that it was placed indoors and the only place where it would fit was by a west-facing window and directly under a heat vent. Mites attacked (& lost, haha!), growth screeched to 1 leaf q 2 wks (50% slower than under HID), etc. By the time springtime came, it was looking fine. But because it was getting so huge, I had to get rid of it. I did keep a pup, though, and it’s growing really nice. I just hate the fact that I cannot keep a lot of large plants in a 2 bdrm apt…DUH! :p
The poor people up north that bought these from TV ads that have been running all season.
What will the do when fall and winter arrives? Kind of hard to move that monster back inside. Ah, most of them will probable kill it before it gets that big.
Just read about some woman who ordered on in April and has not got it yet, she was asking about the company on Rip Off reports.
I repotted a banana tree and I have three leaves that we cut off can I root these leaves in water or not.
Bananas reproduce by corms, which will appear as little saplings around the trunk of your plant when she is ready.
It is best to wait until the saplings have grown large enough to survive separation from the mother plant. It will all depend on the overall health of the root zone, the overall health of mother and “child” plants. Tissue culture buffs would only need that one little “kernel” in the baby rhizome. I’ve separated banana plants left to grow 4-5 ft tall and ended up having to separate them with a machete. All of them thrived and we gave away so many we lost count.
Bananas reproduce by corms, which will peek out of the grow medium surface when the mother plant is mature enough. This may occur as early as two months after the mother plant has been rooted. Care, however, must be observed when separating the corms from the mother plant. An incision is usually required; be sure not to sever the roots of the plants, though.
This is so great…I just ordered some dwarf cavendish seeds. I live under a sloped ceiling, so I’m planning on growing it where it’ll have ~13 feet of headroom.
Eliab, if you had to do it over again, what kind of container would you have opted for?
Either a Mega-Grower system or a 20-gallon pot.