dragr13

I've posted questions about this plant several time on this site, and been given great information; now i have another question. My super dwarf cavendish seems to be choking itself. the new spears are opening way before the previous spears have unfolded. the pup growing off of her is doing spectacularly - it's putting leaves (of steadily increasing size) out nearly once a week! the plant is indoors in a pot - it sits next to an eastern facing window with a radiator right below it - and i fertilized it for the FIRST TIME just last month (with Stokes Tropicals banana fert). has anyone ever seen or heard of this happening to bananas? should i cut the leaves off of the mother at some point? HELP, Please!!!

MediaHound

A lot of the time when I cut a pup from the mother plant, it grows like you describe for a while before catching up with itself so to speak. It fixes itself when given enough time. How long have you had this plant?

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JoeS475

Almost all of my larger bananas are doing exactly what you describe now, 4 months since being brought inside for the winter. They have plenty of heat, and water, but not quite enough light. The leaves are also slightly smaller and narrower than they were outside.

My guess is that the plants are trying to adjust themselves to the available light and are trying to make themselves smaller. I'm going to take one into "surgery" and remove the leaves which never fully emerged along with some pseudostem to let the most recent leaf open. I will see what effect this has. As for the remaining plants I'm sure they will correct their growth habits once they're back outside in a couple of months.

It's a bit of a race against time...

~Joe

P.S. I never fertilize during the winter. Only while the plant is actively growing outdoors in the summer do I do this.

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dragr13

Media hound - Well, i've had the plant for almost two years, but i never knew anything about it until fairly recently, which is why i never fertilized. i had a lot of trouble with it at the beginning because i was overwatering, but it was growing really well last summer. so when i found out that bananas really like fertilizer i bought some and gave it just a taste - half of what would have been reccomended for a month's time, and let it go.

joe - if you could let me know the results of your experiment (or even take pictures!) that would be great. i also feel like i'm racing against time, like if it doesn't get warm soon so that this thing can thrust these leaves out something bad will happen to it... the pup, however, is growing beautifully, so forbiding the worst i will still have a decent plant, with what should be a decent corm by this time, i guess...