I can’t believe it’s been more than a year since the Weed family gave us a banana sucker to plant. “This is a miniature banana plant,” I was told. That put visions of a cute little 4 to 5 foot high banana tree with a comb of bananas the size of pisang emas in my head. Accordingly, I planted it just outside the kitchen and couldn’t wait to see the cute little banana tree grow.

Well, it grew…

The banana sucker when it was first planted last March.

…and grew …

Just over a month later, it was growing well. I especially liked the red marks on the leaves.

…and grew …

Another 3 months down the road, it was still growing nicely.

…and grew …

Add another 5 months to the last photo and you reach this point when I expected fruits to start forming. This was in January.

… until I finally caught a clue that “miniature” was relative, as compared to “normal” banana trees…

So this is the beast we currently have. All my notions of “cute miniature banana plants” have swirled down the drain…

The plant is now taller than I am, with nice, big leaves that block the sunlight and get in the way. Obviously, I had no idea it would grow this big and spread out this much, or else I would have planted it elsewhere!

The plant has been told it that it’s time for it to start producing fruits (hey, the method worked with the pumpkin plants earlier this year!) and I hope to see the spade leaf appear soon, heralding the arrival of the fruits. (See Weed’s post on banana harvests)

The new banana sucker is now 5 months old.

There is already a new sucker, that is going to be moved to a more banana-friendly location very soon. In the meantime, we have to wait and see if my ultimatum worked. Even if it does work, it will be a few more months before the fruits are ready for harvest (I think). Live and learn.

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