Gardening: Martyn Cox
Banana plants will add plenty of jungle-like drama to the plot – and are more robust than you think
As I write this from my upstairs office, I’m looking out a window at my back garden. It offers a perfect bird’s-eye view of a small grove of banana plants, started from a solitary, 3ft-tall specimen five years ago. Thanks to its suckering habit, there are now eight stems, with the tallest stretching over 8ft.
At this point last year, they were topped with a canopy of 6ft-long, paddle-shaped leaves. Sadly, cooler temperatures this spring have held them back, and the few leaves they produced were shredded by violent gales. Still, once the weather improves they’ll pump out a leaf a week until autumn.
My bananas go by the botanical handle of Musa basjoo and have several common names, including hardy banana and fibre banana. It’s also erroneously known as Japanese banana because samples were originally sent to Europe from Japan, although plants are actually native to subtropical southern China.
Imported by James Veitch & Sons nursery in the late 19th Century, Musa basjoo is now a very popular banana variety and the most dependable to grow outside. Yet it’s far from the only type. There are plenty of others that will add drama to gardens with their stature, foliage and exotic good looks.
Coming from China, SouthEast Asia, Bangladesh, India and tropical Africa, these plants fall into two main groups: musa and ensete. Breeding work on the pair has given rise to hundreds of varieties referred to as banana trees due to their trunk-like stems or as palms because they are topped with a parasol of leaves.
In fact, they are neither. Banana plants are a distant relation to ginger and are technically classified as herbs as their ‘trunk’, or pseudostem, doesn’t contain woody tissue.
Mention bananas and the first thing most people will think of are curved fruit with yellow skin and sweet white flesh.
Unfortunately these are produced by varieties that require tropical temperatures and those suitable for growing outdoors in our weather tend to produce bunches of small, hard, green and insipid fruit.
Adventurous types with a conservatory can try growing their own fruit. Musa ‘Dwarf Cavendish’ is the world’s most popular commercial type and plants are readily available. It can be displayed outdoors in summer, but to produce bananas it needs a constant temperature of 15C for 15 months, followed by four months at 27C.
Banana plants like a sunny spot and moistureretentive soil. They are an essential element of jungle-like borders and exotic gardens but they can also be used to give traditional beds and borders a lift, and make fine specimens in lawns. Compact types make great subjects for large containers.
Water regularly, especially in dry spells, and feed with a highnitrogen fertiliser once a month during the growing season.
Windy weather will tear the leaves of some varieties, giving
them the air of something likely found on a tropical island. If their tatty appearance bothers you, snip leaves off close to the stem.
Tender varieties will need moving to a frost-free place over winter. Others are tough enough to survive outside with protection. For example, the foliage of Musa basjoo can withstand temperatures of minus 2C and is root hardy to minus 10C, while golden lotus banana (Musa lasiocarpa) is tough enough to survive a cold snap down to minus 8C.
In mid to late autumn, I cut the leaves off my bananas and then surround the group of stems with a ring of chicken wire held in place with cable ties.
Loose straw is then stuffed into the void and a bin bag placed on top to keep out rain.
The structure remains in place until mid-spring, when there’s little danger of a hard frost.