PlantFiles: Pink Fruiting Banana
Musa velutina

Grows easily from seed, takes a while to germinate. Forms a clump that comes back each year. Lots of water.

Musa velutina is very cold hardy to zone 7b with some mulch. The pink, fuzzy bananas are an awesome addition to the landscape. Grow it as you would musa basjoo.

I started growing this banana from seed 18 months ago and it is now blooming. I had 12 seeds; 5 germinated; the dogs killed one, and the other four are big and gorgeous. I am pretty horrible at growing things from seed, so this plant is obviously easy to grow. This has also been a really wet summer (42" in last 3 1/2 mo.) so that undoubtedly helped.

These things grow very well in East Texas, however, they do require large amounts of water in the summer heat. I'm in region 8a, and the plants regrow each year from the root stock. I try to cut them before the first frost. They make attractive flowers, and I get small bananas each year, about 3-4" long. They aren't edible at that stage.

I live in the country, so I separated my gray water (showers, sinks, washer) and these guys absolutely thrive with the large amount of daily watering they receive. They turn dark green, adding to the sub tropical look that I love!

Thrive like crazy around water, but will not spread to dry areas at all.

Two thumbs up!!

This is a beautiful plant. Do you have a mail order source for it? I live in central Texas and would love to have one.

its very beuatiful, i had one at my home.

This is my favorite plant. It blooms nicely, the fruit is ornamental, and growing from seed is easy. It returns and blooms even after hard freezes.