At the beginning of spring, I found some Musa basjoo at a box store and planted three of them. They've done poorly compared to my Orinoco, which I barely water and don't fertilize on a schedule.

It's frustrating because I always hear how great they are, but these seem very high-maintenance, especially without amazing soil.

I've fertilized them and cleared the grass multiple times, but the growth is unimpressive.

They keep getting sunburned unless I give them weekly fertilizer and keep up with high water levels-which is impossible for me since I have so many plants and hand-watering them all is hell. I’ve amended the best I could where they are but they are useless and most likely will freeze and die.

Orinoco Pitu

Musa Basjoo

Shift your mindset and you'll get better results. You could do any or all of the following:

Remove the weeds

Mulch heavily

Install a watering system

Add fertiliser

Provide shelter

We're all trying to grow plants where they wouldn't grow naturally...I've had more failures than I care to remember...but it's not the plants fault, it's never the plant that sucks.

14 minutes ago, Jonathan said:

Shift your mindset and you'll get better results. You could do any or all of the following:

Remove the weeds

Mulch heavily

Install a watering system

Add fertiliser

Provide shelter

We're all trying to grow plants where they wouldn't grow naturally...I've had more failures than I care to remember...but it's not the plants fault, it's never the plant that sucks.

I just was really wanting to just vent it out! my lack of money and resources makes succeeding with these really difficult. I don't have the funds or knowledge to build a drip irrigation system, and while I might get pine straw mulch eventually, it’s frustrating to grow Musa basjoo for five years without any success.

Here in my neck of the woods, we would chop it in half and let the corm establish itself! The new suckers will be a lot stronger.

12 minutes ago, ZPalms said:

I just was really wanting to just vent it out! my lack of money and resources makes succeeding with these really difficult. I don't have the funds or knowledge to build a drip irrigation system, and while I might get pine straw mulch eventually, it’s frustrating to grow Musa basjoo for five years without any success.

Yeah, I can hear your frustration...I've been battling hydrophobic sand in a cold desert for 20 years, lol.

My honest advice though is that you pool your resources and use them efficiently. If you plant in close groups, you can water with a single $5 lawn sprinkler, also the plants will protect each other as they grow up, the strong support the weak, etc. I've found that in my climate the best bang for getting more tender plants established is under some sort of canopy. I use all sorts of fast growing, cheap trees, Acacias, Alders, whatever works in your climate and is available locally. Plant them at the same time as the palms, or bananas or whatever and put a shadecloth shelter around the palms till the canopy trees give them a bit of shelter. In five years time you'll have a cool, self mulching forest full of bananas 🍌