Bulbs: My Bed of Tulips, 1 by LeawoodGardener

LeawoodGardener wrote:
This was the first year for the red banana - I have grown the green tree variety for 15 years, starting with one that was given to me by a friend. Each year they put out 'pups', so over the years, I've grown dozens of trees - each spring I give several away to friends who comment on them.

In pots, they do not get as large as they do in the ground, so all of mine go directly into the earth (actually, I dig a large hole, line it with decomposed horse manure, put in the tree and fill the remainder of the hole with manure). They normally get 9-12 feet tall.

This was the first year for the red variety, which I purchased at a nursery (it was kinda pricey). It doesn't seem to reproduce the same way (nor did it produce any bananas - my green trees have given me bananas, which never get a chance to mature, due to our short growing season). Here is a photo of one of the stalks of bananas from this season.

I dig them up in the fall, wash all the dirt off the roots and cut off all the leaves, then lay them in a cool, dark corner of my basement for the winter. Come spring, I drag them out, plant the dried stalk in the ground and the season starts all over.