Golden Acre Home & Garden Centre's Plant Library

Description:

A dwarf banana that is not only ornamental, it produces quality edible yellow fruit; best suited to warm temperate climates and can take light freezes; a nice garden accent or container plant

Ornamental Features

Dwarf Cavendish Banana is a wonderfully ornamental plant with characteristically tropical foliage and delicious edible fruit. Its attractive enormous glossy oval leaves remain green in colour with showy dark red variegation throughout the season. The fruits are showy yellow bananas carried in abundance from mid to late fall.

This plant is primarily grown as an ornamental, but it's also valued for its edible qualities. The long sweet bananas are most often used in the following ways:

• Fresh Eating
• Cooking
• Baking

Landscape Attributes

Dwarf Cavendish Banana is an herbaceous tropical perennial with an upright spreading habit of growth. Its wonderfully bold, coarse texture can be very effective in a balanced garden composition.

This plant will require occasional maintenance and upkeep, and should never be pruned except to remove any dieback, as it tends not to take pruning well. It has no significant negative characteristics.

Dwarf Cavendish Banana is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Accent
• Hedges/Screening
• General Garden Use
• Orchard/Edible Landscaping
• Container Planting

Planting & Growing

Dwarf Cavendish Banana will grow to be about 10 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 10 feet. It has a low canopy with a typical clearance of 1 foot from the ground. It grows at a fast rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for approximately 30 years. As an herbaceous perennial, this plant will usually die back to the crown each winter, and will regrow from the base each spring. Be careful not to disturb the crown in late winter when it may not be readily seen!

Bananas are curious plants in a botanical sense. Strictly speaking they are perennials, with individual shoots rising up from underground rhizomes and maturing in one to two years, then ultimately dying after producing fruit, to be replaced by new shoots from the base. However, given their ultimate size and coarseness they almost behave as small trees in the landscape. This plant should only be grown in full sunlight. It does best in average to evenly moist conditions, but will not tolerate standing water. It is not particular as to soil type or pH. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. This particular variety is an interspecific hybrid.

Dwarf Cavendish Banana is a fine choice for the garden, but it is also a good selection for planting in outdoor pots and containers. Its large size and upright habit of growth lend it for use as a solitary accent, or in a composition surrounded by smaller plants around the base and those that spill over the edges. It is even sizeable enough that it can be grown alone in a suitable container. Note that when growing plants in outdoor containers and baskets, they may require more frequent waterings than they would in the yard or garden. Be aware that in our climate, most plants cannot be expected to survive the winter if left in containers outdoors, and this plant is no exception. Contact our experts for more information on how to protect it over the winter months.