Flowering Bananas

Musa Velutina 

Musa Laterita, also known as Ornata Bronze

Hardy Bananas

A number of Bananas including the fruiting variety Dwarf Orinoco and Velutina are hardy, or at least root hardy. The real question is of which ones are worth growing outside. We have found that in our garden the two best ones (Sikkimensis and to a lesser degree Basjoo) can be left unwrapped and still keep their stem height. Doubtless we will be caught out with a harsher winter one day. Sikkimensis is a bigger and more vigorous plant and has some varieties with marked leaves. We have just got hold of Musa Sikkimensis Red Tiger and will be trying it outside from next spring. We think that the wonderful Ensete Ventricosum Montbeliardii may be hardy if wrapped and will be trying it this winter. Musella Lasiocarpa is alledgedly hardy and it did survive outside one winter for us, but  it's not worth it as its main attraction is its flowers which are unlikely to appear after a winter outside.

Musa Sikkimen 

Ensete Ventricosum Montbeliardii

Ensete Ventricosum Maurelii

Maurelii has much deeper colour in the leaves. This plant which started at about the same size reached about 18 inches in the time it took Montbeliardii to reach 7 feet tall. It also produces quite dumpy leaves and has a strange habit of sometimes stopping dead in its tracks and refusing to grow at all.