Tigger's Green Paw
Bananas
Animal Safety: Dogs: Yes Cats: Yes Rabbits: Yes
Free Grazing: Can cause stomach upset if too much is eaten at once. So feed in moderation.
Lifespan:
An individual banana stem (pseudostem) lives for about 13 months and dies after fruiting. However, the underground root system (corm) is perennial. It continually produces new shoots (known as "pups" or suckers), allowing the overall plant colony to live and produce fruit for decades.
Flower:
Banana plants typically flower in the UK during the summer and early autumn (July to October). However, outdoor plants rarely flower and require mature, well-established stalks (often 13+ years) and excellent winter protection to reach the blooming stage.
About:
They aren't actually trees: Despite growing up to 3m (10ft) or more in a single UK summer, banana plants don't form woody trunks. They are technically the world’s largest herbaceous perennials. The "trunk" is simply a tight, overlapping spiral of thick, fleshy leaves.
UK grown bananas are rarely edible: Because they require high, sustained heat and humidity to ripen fruit, outdoor or even conservatory banana plants in the UK rarely produce bananas. If they do, as seen occasionally in places like the Eden Project, the fruit is usually small and inedible.
Even without fruit, they are prized across the UK for their dramatic, paddle-shaped leaves which can reach up to 2m (over 6 feet) in length.
In 1830, a naturalist named Charles Telfair imported wild banana specimens from China to Mauritius. A few years later, a shipment of these plants was sent from Mauritius to England. The plants were acquired by Joseph Paxton, the legendary head gardener at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire.
He successfully cultivated them under glass, naming the species after his employer, William Cavendish. From this single greenhouse in the UK, offsets of the "Cavendish" plant were shipped to Samoa, Tonga, and eventually the Caribbean and Central America, establishing the massive global plantations that supply the UK today. 