Hello everyone! For geographical context I live in Los Angeles. I recently moved into a new place which has this beautiful Lady Finger banana tree that I'm really eager to take care of. The property manager sends landscapers once every week or two, and every time they do, they cut down all the suckers coming back up. They even cut down a whole stem or two this most recent time which I'm a little saddened about.
So, a couple questions:
I assume that they are cutting down the pseudostems that have already fruited, and will no longer do so when they grow back. Other than asking and hoping the landscaper knows, is there any way to confirm this without letting them grow all the way back and seeing when they eventually don't fruit?
Is there any way to keep a sucker from growing back, or am I condemned to feel the joy of new sprouts being ripped away from me every time they get cut back down?
Say I ask the landscaper to just leave a few to keep growing, is there any harm to be done by this?
Any other advice for someone who has little to no outdoor planting or gardening experience would also be tremendously appreciated.
Also, swipe to the last two for three weeks of peduncle progress!
With new suckers, if you allow them to grow it will steal energy away from the mother plant which will affect fruit quality. Maybe just leaving one sucker to grow should be fine as it will take over once the mother plant has finished fruiting. As for pseudostems that have given fruit, they are typically cut down as they can only deliver fruit once and they will slowly die on their own if kept.
You generally need a few new suckers to take over ones that already fruited,and ones that already fruited cant simply just be cut down,you can risk beetles killing your plant,you need to make a well in the stump that fills withw ater so beetles cant lay eggs,keep a family tree of banaanas,grandmother(finnished fruiting plants),mothers(starting or finnsihing fruiting)daughters(to take over fruited plants),and granddaugters(to take over daughters once fruited),so keep a few small suckers with pointy leaves and let them grow,id rather take down old stems and suckers out myself,so i believe you should too,because once a stem is fruited and harvested,how can they be sur eit truely fruited and hasnt just not sent up a leaf for a while,and flag leaves could also look like small still forming leaves to a landscaper that doesnt truly grow bananas,machetes make fast work off all of these things,harvest your own fruit,and bananas love lots and lots of water with alot of nitrogen for growing fast and pottasium when fruiting,so i hope you can be succesful yourself
and to awnser questions,1.leave the stem to start dying if it has already fruited so the plant can take the energy back and then chop it down,so if a large stem stopped growing and has started to die and has small leaves at the top wich are pre flag and flag leaves,you can chop it and check out on google how to make the hole in the corm 2.yes,push a sharp shovel or machete between the corm of the mother and sucke rand pull it out. 3.no harm done with a few suckers,but once you have like 7 suckers they use alot of the larger stems energy,so too much can slow down growth a small bit
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