06-06-2008, 05:34 AM
Water it and mulch it, add a bit of compost or old chicken manure. That should perk it up.
Bananas make a lot of old dried leaves, but those are the lowest ones on the stem and this is normal. If the center leaves are turning brown, then you have a problem. If the stem has fruited, then it will die off, that is normal. There will be several new banana stems coming up from the roots, though, so there will be more bananas again.
Bananas don't grow as a single solitary plant. They like to be in patches. If you plant just one and wait a couple years there will be a thicket of them there. In the untended banana patch outside my window an individual stem will have five to six green leaves (and very unhappy limp leaves they are at the moment) and the stem is almost entirely obscured by old brown leaves hanging down. When it starts to rain again, I'll go in there and trim away the dead leaves and use them to mulch the roots but at the moment I figure the dead leaves are sort of wind insulation to keep whatever moisture is in the trunks in.
Bananas make a lot of old dried leaves, but those are the lowest ones on the stem and this is normal. If the center leaves are turning brown, then you have a problem. If the stem has fruited, then it will die off, that is normal. There will be several new banana stems coming up from the roots, though, so there will be more bananas again.
Bananas don't grow as a single solitary plant. They like to be in patches. If you plant just one and wait a couple years there will be a thicket of them there. In the untended banana patch outside my window an individual stem will have five to six green leaves (and very unhappy limp leaves they are at the moment) and the stem is almost entirely obscured by old brown leaves hanging down. When it starts to rain again, I'll go in there and trim away the dead leaves and use them to mulch the roots but at the moment I figure the dead leaves are sort of wind insulation to keep whatever moisture is in the trunks in.
Kurt Wilson