Lush, large, and beautiful, the various species of banana plants, including hardy banana (Musa basjoo) and Ensete ventricosum, instantly cre- ate a tropical ambiance in any home. These are big, bold, rock stars—plants that stand out in any crowd. These plants are so charismatic, their mere presence can transport you to a South Sea island. Bananas are sometimes called banana trees, but they’re really giant herbs, not trees at all, because they lack woody stems. Their trunk-like “stems” are actually pseudostems, made up of the tightly wrapped bases of leaves.Musa acuminata, M. balbisiana, and the hybrids between them produce edible fruits; cultivars of the Dwarf Cavendish group usually reach 6 to 8 feet tall, but the smallest of them, ‘Super Dwarf Cavendish’, gets only 2 to 4 feet tall and wide, making it the perfect size for many situations inside the home.

The foliage is the most attractive part of any banana plant. The big, wide, green leaves are simple, entire, and very beautiful. ‘Super Dwarf Cavendish’ has leaves perhaps 2 feet long and 8 inches wide, much smaller than standard but just as gorgeous. Some cultivars have foliage with purple-red blotches or stripes, and other cultivars have variegated leaves with sophis- ticated patches of pure white, pale green, and dark green. Banana leaves are easily shredded by the wind, so if your plant spends its summers outdoors protect it from the wind. The flowers are tiny, neither large nor colorful. They form on stalks that emerge from the center of the crown of foliage as soon as a pseudostem is old enough to bloom—at about 18 months. The first flowers to form are male, later flowers are female and develop into the familiar ripe fruits we all know and love. Bananas don’t need to be pollinated to make fruit. As soon as the fruit ripens, the pseu- dostem dies, and the perennial rhizome in the soil sends up new shoots called pups.

COMMON PROBLEMS

Watch for yellowing leaf edges (page 257), scale insects (page 262), and root rot (page 272).