Tuesday, August 31, 2010

How To Divide Your Dwarf Banana


One of the Tropical Dwarf Bananas that we grow, called Musa Cavendish 'Super Dwarf' is an amazingly fast grower, especially when taken outside during the warm days of summer. Its typical growing pattern is to send out "side pups" (new banana plants). These side pups are vital for the health and integrity of the main banana plant but only one pup is needed. The other side pups can be divided, re-potted and given away. My 'Super Dwarf' was in need of division. Although the mature specimen shows a single banana with fruit, we have found that growing 'Super Dwarf' with one side pup allows the plant to grow faster and fruit better.


Dwarf Banana (Musa Cavendish 'Super Dwarf') with two side banana plants (side pups).





CLICK ON THE ARROW TO WATCH: Byron Martin, owner and horticulturist of Logee's Tropical Plants shows how to divide the 'Super Dwarf' Banana.



The original banana plant (left) with the new single banana plant (right). The new 'Super Dwarf' will be going to some friends of ours who have an outstanding French Bakery in Wellfleet, Mass called PB Boulangerie Bistro.

Quick Growing Instructions: During the active growing season give the banana full sun, lots of water and feed regularly (twice a week) with a balanced fertilizer (5-7-9). Minimum temperature is 40 degrees so these bananas for the northern gardeners are meant to be grown inside during the winter. For more detailed growing instructions go to our banana cultural care sheet or pre-order our new book due out in October: Growing Tasty Tropicals in Any Home, Any Where.

5 comments:

  1. Very helpful!

    I am curious what size that larger pot was.

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  2. Glad this was helpful. The large pot is a 14-inch pot and the small pot is a 10-inch pot. To flower and fruit the large specimen, you could move the banana into an 18 -20 inch pot, although it will fruit and flower in the 14-inch, it just needs to get bigger.

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  3. Very helpful article. I often take all the "pups" from my banana trees and pot them up. I'll start leaving one to help the parent tree grow. Any idea why this works? Is this something that is commonly known by banana tree growers?

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  4. This is not typical with Bananas in general. This is specific to this variety, The Dwarf Super Cavendish. We're not really sure why but after growing them the past ten years, this seems to work best if they are grown in a pot. Thanks for your feedback.

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  5. i have these plants in Canada! Can't wait to get bananas

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