botulismo

I'm sorry to have my first post come off this way, but I recently got an ice cream banana in the mail and, while it looked healthy the first day, it started shriveling and looking pitiful in a matter of days.




The other banana that shipped with it is acclimating and is already producing a new leaf.

Is there any chance that this plant will grow anything new? The corm on it was not huge, about the size of a baseball. Would a new leaf shoot up the stem, or would it produce pups eventually? Just want to know before I toss it into the compost.

I appreciate it, and I'm sorry if on my first try I inadvertently violated a forum rule or two. Let me know if I did. I tried

harveyc

Welcome and congratulations for not violating any forum rules that I know of! You might want to eventually introduce yourself in the introductions section.

Your Ice Cream doesn't look good, as you said. Sometimes that can happen even if not over-watered. In general, when you plant a new pup you want to water it once and then not again until the soil gets dry our you see some active growth. Sometimes leaves also get damaged in shipment and end up dieing off, so it's hard to tell exactly what is wrong. If there were new white roots on the corm when you planted it, it should come out of it or at least send out pups. You may want to just cut back the stem you have to a few inches from the ground in hopes it will send up a new leaf from there. When older leaves die like that it can choke off new growth. If the corm was the size of a baseball there is a very good chance it will send up pups, so you certainly don't want to toss it into the compost pile at this point. Many members have reported giving up on a pup to find out months later it is growing....sometimes in the compost pile! Jon ("Pitangadiego") coined the phrase here "never give up!".

Good luck!

Harvey

At this point, you may want to

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botulismo

Hey, thanks. When I get up in the morning I think I'll trim it down and I might do a little light digging to see if it has any white new roots. I'm thinking it did, but I really want to be sure. I have a new ice cream headed my way, so *fingers crossed* this one will be healthy.

I treated both bananas the same when I got them. The other was a dwarf orinoco, so I'd be surprised if it was my treatment that had done it.

I watered them afterwards only when they looked dry, Arizona has a way of doing that to young banana plants. (has never caused me problems doing that with bananas of the past.) So I think I was holding on to your wisdom.

I did water it more after it looked sad, but I probably oughtn't have done that, but I guess you learn from mistakes.

I'll update this thread with my progress, and I'll take any suggestions.

Thanks!

Bananaman88

Welcome to the forum! I feel pretty confident that if you follow Harvey's advice, your Ice Cream will be just fine. Just give it a little time.

sunfish

The first thing I would do is give the ice cream some shade. Any new plant I get or even a fresh dug pup I keep it shaded atleast until it gets new growth. Also planting in a small pot helps to keep from over watering. ALL this has been mentioned before. M

botulismo

Thanks for the encouragement, everyone, I'll take it all to heart and keep this thread updated if there are any new developments.

Patty in Wisc

Oh, do I know the feeling!
"Never give up"!!!

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Patty




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Patty in Wisc has sadly passed away 9/05/11. We will miss you Patty.

Magilla Gorilla

Welcome and good luck with your ice cream.

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Andrew