Musa Basjoo

Musa Basjoo

Summary

The hardiest Banana. will fruit in the UK when Mature if it doesnt get frosted to ground level for a few years. Leaves are prone to wind damage.

2010

I bought this from ebay for £6, as you can see it was only just over 1ft tall (on the right)


August 2010

It was small enough to fit in an upturned bin for its first winter, for which we had some snow, and lows of -6c

2011

By February 2011 it looked like this. The bin was taken off during a sunny period, but was placed on again during a cold snap

Growth started in April:

By August it was up to around 4ft and yo may be able to make out that it has grown multiple pseudo stems:

October, the top of that roller is just over 6ft:

December. the leaves have been frosted and cut off, but during a warm period have grown new rollers:

 I was also given a mature Musa Basjoo by my dad with a 6ft pseudo stem. I planted this in December 2011

2012

It was mild but I protected the Basjoo from the rain, this was early february and they are still green

our winter low was -7.9c in February which froze the unprotected pseudo stems and they lost a lot of height:

the 6ft mature basjoo from my dad also lost most of its height:

September 2012. The clump had grown to around 6ft height

The mature basjoo was moved to the back garden in the spring and had grown to just over 6ft by the end of summer

Because of losing the height in the last winter I decided to protect the Basjoo with fleece and straw, and a bin bag on top for rain protection:

it was a really mild winter with a low of only -3.9c

2013

They sailed through the mild winter, seen here in April

At the end of august up to 9ft and an impressive spread:

 The back garden basjoo reached similar height

with the previous mild winter I and the plants now being larger I didn't protect them in the 2013/14 winter which we had a low of only -2.3c

2014

The leaves even came through without collapsing! (though not pretty)

By the end of April we have some nice new leaves

in august it got up to 12ft

I don't seem to have any pictures from the winter but I again left them unprotected, and we had a winter low of -5.1c

2015

The ones in the back garden survived unscathed

 April

 June

 Early August and a first for me, two of them are flowering

by the end of August the bananas can be seen



It has been very windy this year and the leaves have looked shredded all year

The fruit stays very small. I have seen photos of bigger fruit on basjoo, but I think what is needed is a second plant that is genetically different to pollinate it. I don't think Musa basjoo has set seed in the UK though I have read about it abroad.

It topped out at around 13ft this year before gales snapped off the tops of two stems and most of the leaves at the bases

November 8th

The flowers continue but no fruit is forming, I presume this is because there are no wasps to pollinate the flowers

 

2016

January 10th

the Flowers are still growing 

24th January

I picked a couple of Bananas off the Musa Basjoo last night. the one on the right was mostly jelly, but you can see the seeds (no idea what the white thing is), the one on the left had more "Banana" so I tried it. It tasted rather surprisingly like banana. I was expecting it to be gross but it wasn't unpleasant.