bigdog

Russell, it is extremely hardy! You won't have any problem with it on the north Gulf Coast for sure. It is just as hardy as Musa basjoo here in Knoxville, Tennessee. You have alluded to the one drawback that will limit its use in cultivation to serious collectors only...the running habit. I would plant it where it gets some afternoon shade though, as it doesn't seem to like very hot temperatures at all. By that, I mean mid-high 90s Fahrenheit. This year has been a fantastic season for the bananas, with just a handful of 90F+ days and lots of rain. Eric in Orlando has this banana growing at Leu Gardens in Orlando, planted under some tree canopy, and it does very well there. You probably wouldn't even get much dieback of the pseudostems in an average winter where you are.

My M. yunnanensis has proven to be very hardy here as well, but just corm-hardy so far. I have to start over from the corm every year, since the pseudostems die back completely. This year, despite a zone 7a winter, it has 2 of the fattest pseudostems that it's ever had, so maybe I can bring them through with a little protection.

Paulo, by "running," I mean that it has rhizomes that send pups out up to 2 meters away from the mother pseudostem. As Brent mentioned, there are only a small handful of species that will do this, and to my knowledge, no edible bananas have this habit.

Frank