Trimming Banana Trees

How much effort you have to put into trimming banana tree plants will greatly depend on how much wear and tear and yellow leaves you can tolerate in your garden. It is perfectly natural for banana leaves to be shredded by the wind, and when you see banana plants in their normal habitat they will almost always have severely torn leaves. There is actually an old saying in South East Asia that claims that anyone lucky enough to see a perfect, non-shredded banana leaf will have a wish fulfilled.

Shredded banana leaves are not a problem for the plant – as long as the leaf is green it will continue to carry out photosynthesis and provide the plant with energy. Trimming banana tree leaves as soon as they become a bit worn will actually deprive the plant of valuable nutrients and decrease its energy production. Realising that torn banana leaves are perfectly natural and let them stay in your garden is therefore the wisest decision. If you truly hate torn banana leaves, you must plant your bananas in a highly sheltered spot where the wind cannot cause any damage. Unfortunately, such sheltered spots tend to be shaded, thus unsuitable for the light craving banana.

Yellow leaves do not carry out any photosynthesis, but trimming banana tree leaves as soon as they go a bit yellow is still not a good idea. If you let the leaf stay on the plant for a while, the banana plant will have time to draw valuable nutrients, such as potassium, back into the plant. This reduces the need for fertilizers and boosts the growth rate of the banana plant.

Trimming banana tree for the winter

If you keep a non-cold hardy banana variant in an area subjected to harsh winters, thick mulching may not be enough to prevent the rhizome (root) from dying during the cold season. One solution is then to move the entire banana tree to a sheltered area, such as your garage or an insulated shed. Start by trimming banana tree leaves off where they fork at the trunk. (Do not do this too early; give the plant a chance to draw nutrients back from the cold-damaged leaves.) Spade a circle around the plant, roughly 12 inches from the base and about 10 inches deep. Pull the trunk out of the ground and place both rhizome and trunk in the sheltered area until spring. Do not water during the winter.

N.B! Trunks always die once they have produced fruit. Trying to save a fruit-bearing trunk is therefore useless. Concentrate your efforts on digging up the rhizome and protecting it during the winter; it will produce new pseudostems as the warm season returns.