Growing bananas in NC

I have two banana trees on my lot at White Lake...but our growing season for them is too short to produce edible fruit...they just hang out and provide that tropical, in the jungle look.
 
My ex BIL’s mom has 3 small banana trees in pots she drags in and out of her house in early fall late spring. She claims to get fruit off them, I never seen it.
 
Inglis said:
Where can I get a plant?
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A lot of nurseys in the southeastern part of the state sell them in the late spring and by July 4th they will be all gone, if not sooner.

There are some Red Banana trees at that pop-up nursey on Raeford Road in Fayetteville right now, $40 each...very decorative, in a Martian landscape sorta of way.
 
Long_Hunter said:
A lot of nurseys in the southeastern part of the state sell them in the late spring and by July 4th they will be all gone, if not sooner.

There are some Red Banana trees at that pop-up nursey on Raeford Road in Fayetteville right now, $40 each...very decorative, in a Martian landscape sorta of way.
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Thanks!
 
You can grow bananas in NC. You have to bring them inside during the winter, or dig up and store them under your house. We tried it to see if it could be done and it worked. The fruit was about 4 inches long max. Taste was pretty bland but they were bananas. Would probably work well in a greenhouse. I will be building a greenhouse this year.
 
My MIL grows a ton of Banana trees in Kauai. When we visit, I usually go wild pig hunting and use the banana tree stalks and leaves to cook the pig (Imu style).

One thing to know if you do grow them: A banana tree will only produce fruit once in its life cycle. However, it will produce a bunch of suckers around the base that will bear fruit eventually. I think the hardest part of growing them in this area will be the growing season. It would take a pretty tall greenhouse to accommodate the variety that I've seen grown in Kauai.
 
We started with a "top" from a store bought pineapple, rooted it in water, and planted it.
We put it on the patio in summer, and keep it inside when temps are below 50 degrees.
It takes several years to get fruit. But, it also spins off lots of babies along the way.
From one top, we've grown about 20-25 offspring and 5-6 pineapples.
They get larger and sweeter. Very delicious!
 
InvisibleOne said:
We started with a "top" from a store bought pineapple, rooted it in water, and planted it.
We put it on the patio in summer, and keep it inside when temps are below 50 degrees.
It takes several years to get fruit. But, it also spins off lots of babies along the way.
From one top, we've grown about 20-25 offspring and 5-6 pineapples.
They get larger and sweeter. Very delicious!
Click to expand...
Cool
 
If you like banana trees, good luck. I rate them just above kudzu and just below poison ivy. I think Johnny Appleseed had an evil twin, Johnny Bananaseed. When we bought our house in 2019 there were two very large banana trees growing right next to a concrete patio, and it took a lot of chopping and digging to get rid of them. New ones kept coming up off the roots (which had grown underneath the patio), so for several months I was digging up little clones of the originals.
 
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