Other Names:  Hairy Banana, Pink Fruiting Banana

Description:

An exotic, tropical splash to gardens, producing interesting decorative pink fruits; fruits are more for show than for eating; best suited to warm climates, but has shown to be quite hardy; a nice landscape accent or container plant

Ornamental Features

Pink Banana is a wonderfully ornamental plant with characteristically tropical foliage and uniquely interesting flowers. Its attractive enormous textured oval leaves remain bluish-green in color throughout the year. This plant features showy creamy white flowers with pink bracts rising above the foliage in late summer. The hot pink fruits are held in abundance in spectacular clusters from early fall to early winter.

Landscape Attributes

Pink Banana is an herbaceous evergreen perennial with an upright spreading habit of growth. Its relatively coarse texture can be used to stand it apart from other garden plants with finer foliage.

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.

Pink Banana is recommended for the following landscape applications;

• Accent
• Mass Planting
• Hedges/Screening
• General Garden Use
• Container Planting

Planting & Growing

Pink Banana will grow to be about 6 feet tall at maturity, with a spread of 4 feet. It tends to be leggy, with a typical clearance of 2 feet from the ground, and should be underplanted with lower-growing perennials. It grows at a fast rate, and under ideal conditions can be expected to live for approximately 30 years. As an evegreen perennial, this plant will typically keep its form and foliage year-round.

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. This plant should not require much in the way of fertilizing once established, although it may appreciate a shot of general-purpose fertilizer from time to time early in the growing season. It is not particular as to soil type or pH. It is somewhat tolerant of urban pollution. This species is not originally from North America.

Pink Banana is a fine choice for the garden, but it is also a good selection for planting in outdoor pots and containers. With its upright habit of growth, it is best suited for use as a 'thriller' in the 'spiller-thriller-filler' container combination; plant it near the center of the pot, surrounded by smaller plants 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.