With the right concept, every banana plant can survive the winter healthy and safe. The recipe for success indoors is a combination of location and care. If the frost-hard banana overwinters outside, winter protection is mandatory. These tips sum up how you can successfully overwinter a banana in a pot and bed.

The banana likes it cool and bright in winter

Cut banana in autumn

The banana is a perennial. In fact, the powerful, fibrous, fleshy shoots do not lignify. In winter, the banana palm retracts its pseudo-stems, pauses in growth and sprout again the following spring. A pruning before winter heralds the break. This applies regardless of whether you overwinter your bananas inside in a pot or outside in a bed. How to do it right:

  • Disinfect jackknife or large, sharp knife
  • Cut back shoots to a height of 30-50 cm, shorten man-high bananas to 50-100 cm
  • Dust cuts with wood ash or rock flour (€14.13) to disinfect

Are you planning to overwinter your banana in a pot as a houseplant? Then you can do without the pruning. The disadvantage of this approach is a significantly shorter shelf life, because your banana plant is not granted the winter dormancy.

Overwinter tropical banana indoors

Edible banana (Musa paradisiaca) and other tropical banana species adorn the balcony and terrace in summer with their opulent splendor. If the thermometer falls below 10° Celsius in autumn, the lower limit of cold tolerance has been reached. After the autumn pruning, the location is changed behind glass. How to properly overwinter a tropical banana:

Suitable winter locations

For the winter, the banana plant wants bright, cool conditions at 12° to 15° Celsius. These locations are shortlisted as winter quarters:

  • Temperate conservatory
  • Heated greenhouse
  • Bright staircase
  • Cool, light-flooded bedroom

Overwintering as a houseplant is unfavorable. The combination of lack of light and cozy warm temperatures brings the tropical banana to the brink of ruin.

Care on the back burner

The water and nutrient supply in the winter quarters is reduced to a minimum. With this care you overwinter a banana properly:

  • If the soil is noticeably dry (finger test), water with lime-free water
  • Do not fertilize cut bananas
  • Fertilize uncut bananas every four weeks with half strength liquid fertilizer

In cool, bright winter quarters, uncut banana plants tend to have brown leaf edges. To prevent this, spray the leaves regularly with lime-free water.

Japanese fiber banana outdoors with winter protection

The hardy Japanese fiber banana (Musa basjoo) can overwinter outside with the right winter protection. How to do it:

  • Cut back pseudo-trunks at waist level
  • Build a winter box out of wood or styrofoam panels, fastened with ropes or ratchet straps
  • Fill in straw and press down firmly
  • Cover construction with breathable garden fleece
  • Tie the cover down with cords or ratchet straps

Cut back the shoots at the edge of the nest a few centimeters lower than in the centre. In this way, the cover rests on the winter box like a dome, allowing rain to run off easily.

tips

Pre-winter pruning of a banana tree produces plenty of clippings. Compost is the best option for disposal. The fibrous shoots and thick leaves are chopped beforehand so that hard-working compost worms do not choke on them. The thick-fleshed clippings are useful as mulch (€239.00) on tree discs and in perennial beds.

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