Would it be suitable to cultivate a banana plant in suburban London?
 

Would it be suitable to cultivate a banana plant in suburban London? I have been looking at several varieties of banana plant on this page:

http://www.jungleseeds.co.uk/SeedOrd...arget=d32.html

I particularly like the one with the bright red flowers! Unfortunately my last banana plant which i tried to grow got infested with these little annoying white bugs, around a millimetre big while i was away on holiday!

Please note:

The link i posted is shared by many pages on the website, it will take you to "hardy exotics" just find on the left hand menu of choice: "Banana Seeds"

When is it suitable to start planting crops?
 

In article ,
Maxim writes:
|
| I was wondering, when would it be suitable to start planting things like
| broad beans, corn, french beans, sunflowers and other large plants?

May :-(

| The maximum temperature in my area is only around 14c during the day.

I wish - here it's much lower. All of the peak, minimum and soil
temperatures are relevant.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

If you look at the key at the bottom of the page, you see he has hardiness symbols as one, two or three blue spider icons. In general for suburban SW London, I would look for a variety with at least one blue spider (hardy to -5), assuming you aren't in a frost pocket. In fact the only one he sells which he claims to have any hardiness to that level is Musa sikkimensis.

Musa basjoo is the other well-known (root) hardy banaba, but he's not selling it.

To choose something else, you will have to know your garden conditions very well and hang around on exotic plant forums where lots of banana growers hang out, who have recorded what is necessary to get particular things to survive. I'd have a look through the posts on the (now closed) UKOasis site - lots of posts about marginal bananas there. Growingontheedge is the successor site, but it hasn't been going very long.

People don't usually grow these plants for the flowers. You have to overwinter the pseudostem for several years to get them to flower, and then they die after flowering. People usually grow them for the leaves, and maybe don't mind if they resprout each year from the roots.

To avoid the nasty-bugs-when-small phenonmenon, consider buying a reasonable sized plant rather than seeds. I don't think bananas are the easiest thing to grow from seeds. In fact, cavendish bananas (the ones we eat) don't have seeds, they can only be vegetatively propagated.

When is it suitable to start planting crops?
 

Maxim wrote:

I was wondering, when would it be suitable to start planting things like
broad beans, corn, french beans, sunflowers and other large plants?

Early broad beans (e.g. Aquadulce Claudia or The Sutton) can be sown as
soon as you like, better still last autumn. Under cover ideally, but
they're pretty tough.

Sweetcorn and French beans are tender, so not until the last frost,
though you can push things a little bit by starting them off inside.
But starting too early is a waste of time.

The maximum temperature in my area is only around 14c during the day.

Minimum night time temperature is also important (more important?), and
will likely be negative at the moment.

Peter