Anybody know how long, or how to get a zebrina to flower, I am wanting some seeds, or perhaps try to cross it with my musa velutina/daisycarpa and have a 2 year old plant in a container outdoors.
Last edited by siege2050 : 06-16-2015 at 02:47 PM.
Re: Getting zebrina to flower?
If I wanted to force an ornamental banana to flower, I'd feed it a bloom formula in the spring. Most fertilizers with a very high middle number will work. For example, I sell Grow More 5-50-17.
On the otherhand, I don't recommend forcing edible bananas to bloom because in my experience the crop quality is poor.
I have never gotten mine to bloom and I've grown it for 13 seasons in the Houston, TX area. It does tend to die back to the ground in the winter, even here, so I'm sure that's why it has never flowered for me. I have a potted one in the greenhouse where I work so it should eventually flower, being protected from danger of frost. Time will tell.
I bought mine last spring in something like March-April as a 10-12" 1 gallon pot at Lowes and it has grown to about 6' in the ground has 4 pups and it flowered last week. I don't think it's a matter of time it's water, light and nutrients.
My soil is sandy loamy and I fertilize every few months, watered to acclimate after planting and gave it no water all summer as we had a very wet summer. It gets full sun from 12 noon to about 5 as it's shaded in the am by a mango and afternoon by a house next door.
I have another in a large clay pot that I bought a few weeks after the first, it was larger than the first by double and it has grown less and has not flowered. It gets a bit more light and care has been the same as the first one.
Judging by my Zebrina growth habit, it took over a year to flower, and even LONGER to fruit.
Mine seems to be seedless and edible. See main discussion for pics. Mine is just now (one at a time) giving me ripe bananas. From October to now is a pretty long time compared to my other nannas.
Last edited by gnappi : 05-02-2017 at 02:51 PM.
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