They are about 15' tall Elaine!

10-12 is better than none...!

Man, your avatar has always reminded me of that great cartoon "George of the Jungle" and you truly have grown yourself a jungle there, George. (and once again, I ask myself what the heck you are doing living in the mountains of NC . . )

I see some gorgeous AeAe leaves on the left there, and a banana flower in the middle. Might not make it to producing fruit by the time the weather gets cold, but you know, the Indonesian people also eat the flower.

That is good to know the flower is edible Elaine.

Oh yes that flower is edible..usually cooked with coconut milk! Southeast Asian countries have similar recipes. I remember my mom cooking the dish called Laksa.

I saw this page, shows how the banana heart is prepared for cooking: http://casaveneracion.com/bana...

Thanks Tarev. It has gone into my recipe folder.

The Ae'ae is a Tanee Elaine. There are about 10-12 bananas above that flower.

It's been awhile since I posted. Both bananas survived the winter. The pseudostems would have survived, but we had a freak snowstorm at the end of March that killed my bananas to the ground. The dwarf Namwah has 3 suckers that have grown leaps and bounds after record rainfall at the end of May. The Orinoco is slowly gaining height but it's far behind the DN. Tomorrow I'm going to top dress with Black Kow topsoil since mulch compacts in my flowerbeds. I'll start adding grass clippings too. I planted some daylilies and ornamental sweet potato vines to act as a living mulch. I'll post pics tomorrow. The crinums may have to be moved next year too?

Here they are today. I added a layer of composted cow manure this morning.

Orinoco


Dwarf Namwah

Here I am under my Dwarf Namwah. I have 3 main plants and 4 pups that recently sprouted.

Wow, well done Cameron! Feed and water those pups, now!

Thanks Elaine! I'm giving them twice a week fertilizer, a mix of MG tomato food and potassium nitrate. I'm also giving them a 5 gallon bucket of water everyday.

It looks great Cameron. Very enjoyable following a year in life of Dwarf Namwah.

Thanks Evan. I'm very proud of my bananas, I'm hoping they tower over the house by Fall?

Well, being as they are "dwarf" they may not tower, but I'll bet they're all as tall as the mama plant at least.

I just found out mine could be the regular namwah. I won't know for sure until it flowers but if it's the regular namwah, it's supposed to grow to 14'.

It's really hard to be sure of what type of bananas any of us have unless they have bloomed.
They're often mixed up or even intentionally mislabeled...
I've been growing one kind for some time now, the best I can tell, it's nnamwah or dwarf nnamwah...
You always have to remember that dwarf doesn't always mean much when it comes to musa, 14' is not small! But could mean dwarf... But growing conditions really mean everything to these plants!
Many can reach 30' in the true tropics, but in subtropical areas they might only reach 10-15', and still bloom... Also the size of the mat, and the number of pups make a huge differences too.
I have a super dwarf, poquito, 3 years old in a pot and it's about 3', I put a spear pup in ground and it's already 4' plus the new 3' roller, truly tiny supposedly do the same thing...

As long as you like the plant, who cares what it's called?

You're right about that. I've had one for three years after it had a rough start, now it's produced so many pups. The Orinoco on the right is starting to catch up with the other one. I've killed over 20 bananas, bit I finally got it right this time lol. It's really amazing how fast the pups grow. I'm still thinking of separating a couple of pups to start another flowerbed with bananas. My tallest plant is 66" Last year my Orinoco grew to 72" before it froze back.

Aeae

Beauties, Drew. Looks like mama is bending over baby in your pic.