Hello,

I saw a DIY shop reducing some banana plants to clear. The problem is
they are only identified on the shop label as "houseplant"! There is a
small plastic card pushed into the soil but it simply says "musa". How
can I go about identifying the varierty or do they all look similar?

There were two which had different labels that stated "dwarf
cavendish" but I'm always paranoid about these labels because what's
to stop someone mischieviuosly swapping them between plants? I say
this because the next time I visited, the plants were there but these
tags were nowhere to be seen. Someone had taken them but why?! Perhaps
it was just a child playing?

The plants are very pot bound. What soil should I repot in: just
"normal" compost? I have read about the dwarf cavendish, assuming this
is it, and I know if requires 15C so must be kept indoors in winter.
Is there anything else I need to know?

On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 04:25:35 -0700, Ornata
wrote:

'Dwarf Cavendish' makes an extremely good houseplant - I've had one
(now in a huge pot) for seven years, rather neglected, and this year
it flowered. Give it as much light as you can, especially in winter.
Watch out for red spider mite, which are a real problem on bananas
kept indoors. Try standing the plants on a gravel tray to boost
humidity, and mist them regularly. If you see signs of red spider
mite (bronze mottling on the leaves, or leaves yellowing, and webbing
between leaves), treat it immediately. It won't suffer if the
temperature is lower than 15C, as long as it doesn't freeze. It will
benefit from being outdoors in the warmer months. It will make
offsets, which you can remove and pot up separately as long as they
have some of the parent rhizome and some roots. If you lose the
pseudostem, you can usually make the rhizome re-shoot by putting the
pot on a heat source, such as a propagator.

Thank you very much! Very useful.