What’s Happening With My Banana Plant – Ask Anna

Happy March everyone! This month we are answering one of your great questions. “What’s happening with my banana plant?“

This looks like the bigger Cavendish banana plant, it’s beautiful! They come big like this and sometimes can reach the ceiling or they can be really small in size. It could look like this due to stress, so we will talk about what are the best conditions and what pests to look for in a banana plant that is grown indoors.

The banana plant can grow in whatever type of soil you throw at it. I would recommend soil mixed with a handful of vermiculite (helps to aerate the soil while simultaneously retaining water and nutrients) and a handful of bone meal (to fertilize and give it nutrients). The environment in which you have your banana plant indoors should be around 20 degrees Celsius, or a little bit above that all year round. If it goes to about 15 degrees Celsius, it will not grow and might start to struggle. A good way to keep an eye on the temp is to get a thermometer placed near the plant. Avoid watering it with very cold water. Banana plants are heavy enough drinkers of water but you can’t have them sitting in water. For lighting, you want to give it as many hours as you can from a south-facing window.

Organic or inorganic fertilizer with high nitrogen is great for growing any green plants, like this banana plant. Pot size can go up to 40 to 44 cm pot, but I would only transplant it if it needs to be. A good way to know if it needs to be transplanted is to check the drainage holes under the pot. If the roots are growing out, they should be re-potted. But this type of plant can be put into a larger pot and manage without any issues.

Pests to look for in this plant are mealy bugs (white cotton ball-like on the stems), spider mites (webbing on the plant feed on young growth), thrips, fungus gnats (very small fruit fly like- usually seen around the soil).Now in the photo where you see the leaf browning and it has a yellow trim to it; it’s a sign you are not giving the banana plant enough water. To fix it just be sure not to let it go dry again and your new leaves will look beautiful and green, which is what I see here with your new leaves. It’s nothing to worry about, it looks like it’s doing better! This brown leaf will drop eventually with time. Now if the leaf turned all yellow, it would mean it was getting too much water, showing mostly in the lower leaves of the plant.

If you would like me to answer one of your questions next month you can send your question to me at in**@th*******.ca attention Ask Anna.

I hope everyone has a fantastic month and be sure to stop by Harvest and say hi!