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Mangosteen
12-22-2009, 09:58 PM
My Ae Ae banana plant bore some fruit.

Here's what the leaves look like.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/GarySiegel/AeAE002.jpg

Even the bananas are striped! And they taste pretty good, too!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/GarySiegel/temp031.jpg
NinetyWt
12-22-2009, 10:01 PM
Ah! So cute! How big are the bananas?
Mindfield
12-22-2009, 10:30 PM
Oh, cool! You grow your own bars of Irish Spring!
Mangosteen
12-22-2009, 10:35 PM
Ah! So cute! How big are the bananas?

Thank you. They are a little bit smaller than the ones you get in a supermarket. The flesh is a light orange color, much different than the white flesh ones in the supermarket.
Harmonious Discord
12-22-2009, 10:44 PM
Are they ripe when the skin is green and cream?
Mangosteen
12-22-2009, 10:50 PM
When they ripen, the skin turns a light yellow and the stripes almost disappear, but the yellow color is much different than the deep yellow you see on a ripe supermarket type.
Rhythmdvl
12-22-2009, 11:02 PM
Wow, lucky you! I was lucky enough to be at Biosphere 2 when one of our banana plants fruited -- what a treat!

Do you have a picture of the whole flower? They were one of the most science fiction-y plants I'd ever seen (excluding triffids, of course).
Mangosteen
12-22-2009, 11:17 PM
Wow, lucky you! I was lucky enough to be at Biosphere 2 when one of our banana plants fruited -- what a treat!

Do you have a picture of the whole flower? They were one of the most science fiction-y plants I'd ever seen (excluding triffids, of course).

I don't have a photo of the flower phase, but here's a photo of another "science fiction-y" flower that I grow. Its a jade vine.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/GarySiegel/jadevineapril152007plusvariegate-2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v61/GarySiegel/jadevineapril152007plusvariegatedbo.jpg
Monstera deliciosa
12-23-2009, 12:42 PM
Love the banana. And I really love the Jade Vine. I first saw one of those at the New York Botanical Gardens. I couldn't believe the color of the flower. It was the exact color of the sky in one of the Van Gogh paintings at the museum where I was working at the time.
kayaker
12-23-2009, 01:22 PM
Very cool banana! Are you somewhere warm? I got my gf a dwarf banana (zone 5, PA) and it is doing great in her sunroom, but no fruit yet.
Mangosteen
12-23-2009, 06:02 PM
Very cool banana! Are you somewhere warm? I got my gf a dwarf banana (zone 5, PA) and it is doing great in her sunroom, but no fruit yet.

I'm in southern California, so the banana grows outside without any problem.

Is this the first winter inside the sunroom for the banana?
lissener
12-23-2009, 06:08 PM
So awesome. The Thompson and Morgan catalog is plant porn for me. Please order this plant and bloom it for us!

http://www.thompson-morgan.com/seeds1/product/gwr7338/1.html
kayaker
12-24-2009, 08:34 AM
I'm in southern California, so the banana grows outside without any problem.

Is this the first winter inside the sunroom for the banana?

I bought the plant from a mail-order place (Spring Hill) this past spring. It was a tiny, bare root plant. My gf potted it up and it has been in the sunroom ever since. Growth was initially slow, but then it started growing nicely. It is about three foot tall now.