How to Split Banana Trees
With tall upright trunks and stems holding large, broad leaves, banana plants, grown outdoors in southern Florida and California or as specimen plants in indoor settings, provide an attractive accent to home or landscape. While bananas can grow to well over 20 feet tall and resemble trees, they are actually a type of herbaceous plant that grows from rhizomes, special stems that grow underground. Banana plants often produce small shoots, called suckers, that you can remove and grow to propagate the plant. Does this Spark an idea?
Other People Are Reading
Things You'll Need
- Square-edged nursery shovel
- Coarse sand
- Peat moss
- 3-1-6 fertilizer with magnesium
Instructions
-
-
1
Excavate, carefully, around the base of the plant near a sucker that is between 3 and 5 feet tall to reveal the rhizome from which the sucker is growing. Place the edge of the shovel on the rhizome between the parent plant and the sucker. With a quick thrust, cut the rhizome.
-
2
Dig under the sucker and remove it from the ground, preserving as many roots as possible. Prune back the largest leaves on the sucker, leaving only the young leaves on the plant.
-
-
3
Find a location for the sucker that provides full sun for the plant. Dig a hole around 2 feet deep and 3 feet wide. Plant multiple suckers at least 12 feet apart. Place the sucker in the middle of the hole.
-
4
Combine the excavated soil with an equal amount of coarse sand and peat moss. Backfill the hole with the soil. Press the soil down around the roots and trunk of the sucker.
-
5
Place 3 inches of mulch around the newly planted banana sucker and water the plant thoroughly to the point where the soil is damp, but not wet.
-
6
Water the plant each week with up to 2 inches of water. Fertilize the sucker with a 3-1-6 fertilizer with around 3 percent magnesium every other month for one year after planting.
-
1
References
- Photo Credit Brand X Pictures/Brand X Pictures/Getty Images
