Post #536747 by Tiki Zen on Wed, Jun 16, 2010 1:02 PM

This is my fourth season growing banana trees - started with three and now have about a dozen. Each fall I've cut the trunk/stalk back to about 6' high, dug up the bulb, separated off the bigger pups and stored them in the garage to hibernate over the winter. When I replanted in the spring I cut a bit more off the stalk to get to viable tissue and they've leafted out from there. I've left the stalks fairly long so that the trees are taller from the start.

This winter was hard on them and the stalks were pretty soft. They've now been back in the ground several weeks and are shooting up quite a few pups from the base, but only one has leafed from the old stalk, despite cutting way back to find more viable material.

So, I've got a bunch of little pups and leafless, 4' stalks. Several of the stalks still feel fairly firm toward the bottom - can I go ahead and cut the old stalks down to about ground level, or are they still contributing something to the pups?