How to grow a banana from seeds at home, difficulties of growing. How to grow a real banana at home

Many people dream of growing bananas at home. The idea seems quite unusual, since this tropical plant mainly grows and bears fruit in hot climates and high humidity air. But if desired, nothing is impossible, especially since the adaptation of this culture to different climatic conditions has been happening for thousands of years.

Growing environment

Despite the fact that the banana is a large plant (some specimens in tropical climates grow above 10 m), it is not a tree. And although it has a very characteristic crown, it is not a palm tree either. All types of bananas, and there are more than 70 of them, are herbaceous plants. What is called the trunk is actually tightly woven leaf petioles. But the real stem, short and thick, is almost entirely located in the ground. Side shoots are formed on it, which develop alternately, replacing each other. Sheet plates, which form a rosette at the top of the false trunk in an amount from 6 to 20 pieces, at different types differ in size and color. But they are always large (from 0.7 m to 2.5 m) and elongated oval in shape. Root system under natural conditions it is very powerful for a herbaceous plant. It can reach a depth of up to 1.5 meters, and the lateral shoots extend up to 5 m. In size, this grass is second only to bamboo, which is also a herbaceous plant.

The development of green shoots in tropical climates lasts about 10 months. Then comes the flowering period. A powerful peduncle appears from the center of the false trunk, at the end of which a complex inflorescence is formed. Initially the inflorescence is covered common shell and is shaped like a huge purple or green pistachio. Then the shell opens and a multi-tiered inflorescence appears. At the base of the inflorescence are female flowers that have only a pistil. In the middle part of the inflorescence there are bisexual flowers with both stamens and pistils. They are smaller than female ones.

At the end of the inflorescence there are small male flowers. All flowers are tubular, consist of 3 petals, 3 sepals. Wild bananas bloom at night. At this time of day they are pollinated the bats. During the daytime, flowering bananas attract insects and birds, which also pollinate them.

Fruits develop only from female flowers, since the rest are sterile. Bananas are a multi-seeded berry covered with a dense shell. Fruits of different types and varieties are very different in size, color and shape. The length of a banana can vary from 5 to 35 cm. The shape can be cylindrical or triangular. Most varieties and species have fruits different shades yellow color, but there are also green (when ripe), reddish and whitish bananas. Up to 300 fruits can ripen from 1 inflorescence, but usually there are no more than 50 of them. After the fruits ripen, the above-ground part of the plant dies off, and a new shoot appears from the stem.

U wild plants the fruits contain a large number of seeds, which also vary in shape and size. Banana seeds are very hard and dense, their number in 1 fruit can reach 200 pieces. Those fruits that are sold in stores and on the market are obtained from an artificially bred variety called “Paradise Banana”. Banana varieties that do not have seeds are suitable for propagation only by vegetative means.

How to grow banana at home?

Banana is a very demanding crop to care for. Being a tropical plant, it needs high temperature, bright lighting and high air humidity. In the absence of these conditions, the plant will grow poorly, will not bloom or bear fruit, and may dry out and die.

Growing banana in a pot

Growing a banana at home is even for experienced flower growers a troublesome matter. It reproduces by seeds and vegetatively. Growing a full-fledged plant from seeds at home is very difficult, and finding them is not very easy. But you can try. Important Feature: bananas propagated in this way with inedible fruits.

Both ornamental and fruit varieties can be grown in pots. Decorative varieties They are distinguished by their greater unpretentiousness, compact size and attractive leaf colors. These varieties also produce fruit, but they are not suitable for food. As house plant They grow bright red banana (its height does not even reach 1 m), lavender and velvety, which can grow up to 1.5 m.

Fruit varieties look less attractive, but you can get edible fruits from them small size. IN room conditions They grow Kiev dwarf (1.5 m tall) and superdwarf (up to 1 m). In greenhouse conditions or a high-ceilinged room, you can grow varieties such as Velvet Pointed and Dwarf Cavendish. These plants grow up to 2.5 m.

When growing bananas from seeds, the plants are more viable, since their adaptation begins from the moment the seeds germinate. How to plant a banana? Since the skin of the seeds is very dense, for faster pecking of the sprouts it is sanded with a nail file or sandpaper. Through the artificially thinned shell, moisture will quickly reach the seed embryo, and it will begin to grow. The polished seeds are soaked in warm (35°C) water for a day. During the day, the water is changed every 6 hours, maintaining the required temperature. After the sprouts appear, the seeds are placed on a sand-peat substrate consisting of 1 part sand and 4 parts peat, and slightly deepened into it. Cover containers with planted seeds transparent film and glass, and placed in a warm, bright place.

Seed germination takes a long time and takes 2-3 months. During this time, it is necessary to carefully monitor the soil moisture and spray it from time to time with a spray bottle. It is necessary to ventilate the crops daily. The room temperature should be about 30°C during the day and at least 25°C at night. The emerging seedlings grow very quickly, so several transplants will be needed in the first year. This is usually done as soon as the plant's roots become visible from the drainage holes.

Vegetative method of propagation

These plants are propagated much easier and faster by cuttings. This method is started at the moment when fruiting is completed, and the above-ground part of the plant has died, and a new one has not yet grown. To do this, the underground stem is dug out of the ground and the part with the bud that has begun to grow is carefully separated. This part of the stem is planted in a separate prepared pot. As the pot grows, the capacity of the pot increases when transplanting. Don't plant small plant straight into a large pot. The root system of a young plant is not able to absorb large amounts of moisture, which will lead to acidification of the soil and rotting of the roots. As a result, the plant may die.

When transplanting young plant removed from the pot along with a lump of earth. This will prevent damage to the fragile root system. A larger pot is selected, the diameter of which is 2-3 cm larger than the previous one. Must be placed at the bottom of the pot drainage layer, consisting of expanded clay or small pebbles, then a layer of sand and only after that a layer of fresh soil. The basis of the soil for growing bananas should be leaf soil, to which humus, wood ash and coarse sand are added. Adult dwarf plant For fruiting it needs a 50-liter container; a 35-liter pot is enough for a super-dwarf banana. Despite dwarfism, this is far from small plant and needs a spacious flowerpot. Under suitable conditions, in the 3rd year of life, you can get completely edible fruits from the plant.

IN flower shops or in greenhouses you can purchase a plant ready for growing. You should not buy a large banana, as after greenhouse conditions it will be difficult for it to adapt to the climate of the apartment. It is better to take a young, recently germinated plant.

Conditions for successful banana growing

For homemade bananas, you need to choose the brightest place in the room. This plant can feel normal only in bright light. In autumn winter period In any case, the banana will need additional lighting. But the burning summer sun can harm the tender young leaves, so during this period the plant should be slightly darkened.

Optimal temperature, at which bananas grow as quickly as possible, is 30-35ºС. IN winter time this plant can withstand 16ºС, but its growth will stop completely.

Despite the fact that bananas are very moisture-loving, they tolerate slight drying out of the soil much more easily than waterlogging. Therefore, you should be careful with watering. Bananas need to be watered generously, but not very often. The criterion is that the top layer of soil has dried by 2 cm. For irrigation, you can only use warm (about 30°C) settled water. In the warm season, this plant should be sprayed as often as possible. It’s even better to place the pot on a wire rack with a container of water underneath it, or place a humidifier next to the pot.

Obtaining fruits from dessert varieties is very problematic without the use of fertilizers. This culture takes well organic fertilizers in the form of infusions of manure or fish broth. You can also use ready-made fertilizers for fruit trees or vermicompost. It is recommended to water bananas with infusions of common weeds. You can also add crushed banana pulp and peel to the soil. In the warm season, the plant is fed once a week, and in winter - once a month. Growing a banana at home, and even tasting its fruits, is not an easy task, but it is quite realistic and interesting.

Which looks like a tree, which is where it gets its name. A lot of people grow it on suburban areas However, you can please yourself with it by sheltering it at home. Let's figure out how to plant this plant and how to care for a banana in the conditions.

Biological features

Trimming

To prevent the plant from growing excessively, its top is shaped into the required shape. But pawpaw is needed only for the decorative formation of the trunk, and also for sanitary purposes. The flowers and fruits of this plant are formed on last year's shoots, so every year it is necessary to prune adult plants. This is done most often before the start of the growth period before sap flow - in early spring.

Do I need special care in winter?

heat-loving but frost-resistant plant. Withstands temperatures down to -30°C. In winter, he definitely needs it. In winter, during the dormant period, he needs the plant much less often. Water for irrigation in winter should be at room temperature. Due to heating in winter, the air in apartments often becomes very dry, so you can periodically spray the plants. In winter, it is reduced to a minimum or not carried out at all.

Transfer rules

Due to the fragile measles system, you need to be very careful when transplanting pawpaws. If such a need arises, you need to do this by transferring it into larger containers. The transplantation process is carried out only in the spring. During this period, the banana tree is in a period of active growth and the plant will grow stronger much faster after transplantation.

Flowering and fruiting

The plant will begin to bloom no earlier than 2-3 years of life, and bear fruit no earlier than 5-6 years of life. This usually occurs in April and lasts up to 3 weeks. The fruits of the banana tree will be ready to eat at the end of summer.

Important! The soil in which pawpaw grows should not be allowed to dry out completely during the winter. This can lead to the death of the plant.

Pawpaw cannot self-pollinate, insects and hummingbirds help her with this in nature. If there is a strong desire to get fruits, the owner of the plant can try artificial pollination, but the likelihood of getting fruits still remains small. Artificial pollination is carried out when the color of the pollen turns brownish and the pollen itself becomes loose. The tips of the pestles should by this point become sticky and have a glossy appearance. green color. You can get fruits at home if you try to create the most Better conditions and carry out pollination correctly.

An indoor banana is a natural vacuum cleaner; it pulls everything out of the air. harmful substances and dust. At good care dwarf banana bears fruit in 2-3 years. The flower is large and long, somewhat similar to an elephant's trunk. It can bear several dozen fruits that ripen in up to 9 months.

The plant will feel best on the south window. An adult banana, of course, will no longer fit on the windowsill. Important! Indoor banana does not have a powerful root system. Don't plant it in huge tubs. The maximum pot volume is 20 liters. The dwarf banana is a very light and heat-loving plant; it constantly reaches towards the sun and leans towards the window.

You need to rotate the pot periodically, especially in the cold season, when daylight hours are short. Therefore, the tub should be on wheels or on mobile platform to make it easier to turn mature plant. And you will have to turn the indoor banana 3-4 times during the winter.

Varieties of indoor banana

Technical varieties, from which ropes are made.
Feed– the fruits are large and long.
Edible– a fruit measuring 10-12 cm with a pineapple flavor.

By the way, in our stores they mainly sell feed varieties, and the edible ones are passed off as an elite variety, the so-called baby banana. And it costs many times more. For growing in an apartment or winter garden only suitable dwarf edible banana varieties:

Kyiv dwarf
Super dwarf.

Dwarf bananas are preferable because the maximum height of an adult plant is only 1.5 m, and the length of the leaves is about a meter. In flower shops you can often find Dutch plants of an unknown variety. Most often this technical grades which will not bear fruit. Inedible bananas also grow from seeds. Therefore, purchase seedlings of indoor bananas only in garden centers or greenhouses that specialize in dwarf edible varieties.

Banana planting

Suitable soil mixture for flowering plants or soil from deciduous forest mixed with humus and sand in a ratio of 3:1:1. You still need to add ash. Before planting indoor bananas, the soil is disinfected with boiling water. With each transplant, the root collar of the plant is deepened by 3-4 cm. Therefore, choose a deep container for your dwarf banana.

Every 3 months, an indoor banana is transplanted into a pot with a volume of one liter larger. There must be a layer of coarse drainage at the bottom.

Important: you can replant sproutsonly in summer, in extreme cases - in September. If you do this in the cold season, the indoor banana will get sick and will not take root. It is necessary to spray the leaves daily in the summer, and 2 times a week in the winter.

The main rule of watering

The dwarf banana is completely unpretentious and can withstand a whole month without watering. But this does not mean that you don’t need to look after it at all. Watering a banana in the apartment plenty of warm water so that the entire soil is saturated with moisture.

Important: It’s better not to water a banana at all than to water it a little. Avoid the other extreme - too frequent watering.The roots of the dwarf banana do not like stagnant water.

What to feed

This is an exotic plant loves organics in any form: humus, vermicompost, humisol, etc. Reacts well to iron chelate. In the summer, the banana in the apartment is fed every week, and in the winter you can feed it twice a month. The dwarf banana is very loves spraying.

Pests and diseases

Pests almost never attack dwarf bananas. If all the other plants on the windowsill are getting sick en masse, for prevention you can treat the indoor banana with a pest repellent for indoor flowers.

The lower leaves of indoor banana gradually turn yellow and dry out. This is not a disease, but a natural process. They just need to be trimmed carefully.
Sometimes on the edges of the leaves of a dwarf banana appear brown spots. The reason may be rotting of the root system or a lack of nutrients. In the first case, you need to reduce the frequency of watering. In the second - feed the plant.

On wide spreading dust settles on the leaves of a dwarf banana, so it is useful to wipe the leaves with a damp cloth once a month and sometimes spray them.

Reproduction

It reproduces easily children-children. Three years before flowering, a dozen or even two of them grow. When the children grow to 20 cm in height, they can be carefully separated from the mother plant with a knife and placed in water with a root growth stimulator, such as Kornevin, for a couple of hours. Mix the soil for the shoot with humus or vermicompost in a 1:1 ratio.

How to make it bloom

Banana flowering in an apartment is facilitated by fertilizing with potassium and phosphorus, and by observing all agrotechnical practices.
We do not recommend separating the baby if she is alone.. This significantly delays flowering, sometimes by a year or two.
To save the view A young banana should grow next to the adult plant, which will replace the “parent”, because after fruiting the above-ground part of the banana completely dies off.

The “young generation” of the dwarf banana will grow up to a meter tall in six months and the cycle will repeat again.

There is an opinion that it is almost impossible to grow a tropical or subtropical plant at home. For example, banana is a plant from the tropics, a lover of humid and warm climates. How will he feel in indoor culture? And is it possible to grow a banana from a seed, and even eat homemade exotic fruits?

Features of the plant

Many people are accustomed to thinking of a banana as a palm tree and are extremely surprised that it is a large herbaceous plant. It is demanding to care for (you need to create conditions for it close to the tropics), but it is quite amenable home growing. Moreover, you can also get fruits.

The perennial representative of the Banana family literally does not have a trunk. What we consider the trunk of a “tree” is the closely spaced bases of elongated leaves (pseudostem). The rhizome (rhizome), hidden underground, is the true stem. Unusual plant, in which everything is not like other cultures, but “upside down.”

It belongs to monocarpic crops: after fruiting is completed, the above-ground part of the plant dies off. The rhizome gives rise to a new plant, forming shoots. A banana quickly grows its ground part: a leaf grows in a week. In indoor culture it begins to bloom in the third year. A flower forms at the top of the leaf. Moreover, a banana can bloom throughout the entire growth period, gradually forming a cluster of fruits that ripen unevenly.

Although banana is a herbaceous plant, in the wild it reaches great heights (9-12m). Low-growing (dwarf) varieties have been created specifically for cultivation at home.

Reproduction methods:

seeds;
basal shoots;
dividing the rhizome.

Important! The bananas we eat are seedless. These are the fruits of the Cavendish varieties, which can only be propagated vegetatively. Those that can be grown from seeds are almost inedible: inside the banana there is an abundance of seeds and little pulp. They are grown for their decorative value.

Bananas can be propagated indoors in two ways:

Plant with seeds. This will be a wild subspecies, strong and viable, but its fruits are inedible, because there is little pulp in them.
Buy a sprouted plant. This is, as a rule, a varietal crop obtained vegetatively, capable of “bearing” tasty, edible fruits.

This is interesting!

In some tropical countries, banana is the lion's share export. In terms of sales to other countries, this crop ranks 4th in the world, behind rice, wheat and corn. About 40 species are included in this genus.

Species grown indoors

Species are conventionally divided into two groups:

Decorative, growing at home is intended to diversify the interior, for landscaping the apartment. Their fruits are also a kind of decoration, but they are inedible. These include bananas: velvety, lavender, bright red, Chinese dwarf. All of them reach about one and a half meters in height.
Fruit species are decorative, and they ripen fruits with good taste. These are pointed banana, dwarf Cavendish, super-dwarf Cavendish, Kiev dwarf, Kiev super-dwarf. Their height varies from one to two meters.

This is interesting!

A Ukrainian breeder who was breeding this crop at home claims that the yield of the above species is 150 fruits from one “grass tree.”

The seeds of this crop take a long time to germinate, like most seeds of tropical plants. Therefore, you can buy an already germinated plant. If all care requirements are met, it will bloom and bear fruit in indoor cultivation. After purchasing, do not forget to replant the banana in soil suitable for it, making drainage and creating the necessary conditions for growth.

Tropical plant from seeds: difficult or simple?

Seeds can be purchased at the store. As a rule, a package contains 3-4 seeds. According to customer reviews, they sprout, but not as quickly as we would like.

How to properly plant at home? Let's look at it step by step.

The seed has a dense shell, so it will be difficult for it to hatch. To do this, there is a technique called scarification: the durable shell needs to be filed down, but without piercing or damaging the contents. The main thing is to allow the sprout to come into the light.
You can plant the seeds in separate containers, or in a planting box at a distance of 15 cm between future seedlings.
A separate technique is to germinate seeds in advance in a damp coconut substrate mixed with perlite. The substrate is poured into a plastic bag, mixed with seeds. They tie it and pierce several holes in it. Place in a warm place, and after 2 weeks the hatched seeds are planted in pre-prepared pots.
Potting substrate for banana seeds is river sand and peat (4:1). No feeding is needed, but drainage is required for further cultivation. You can prepare another soil mixture - this is forest turf with rotted leaves and needles. They are an excellent disinfectant. The mixture will have the following composition: forest turf, wood ash, sand and peat in equal proportions.
Seeds planted at home in the spring-summer period germinate after 3-5 weeks, and autumn-winter planting will increase the duration of seedling emergence to 3-5 months.
The seeds need to be distributed over the surface and lightly pressed into the soil, without covering them with soil, so that light falls on the seed. To preserve heat and moisture, place the container in a warm place and cover it with glass or film.
The film is periodically opened so that the air does not stagnate. If the substrate dries out, then spraying with a spray bottle is necessary.

Advice!

There is no need to place the seedlings in direct sunlight. If mold appears on the surface due to insufficient ventilation, then this area must be removed, treated with potassium permanganate and aeration monitored.

8. Growing a tropical plant and seed involves a long wait for germination. It may take 2-3 months for green shoots to appear. Then their rapid growth begins, and after a week young bananas can be planted on " permanent place residence."

You don’t have to buy seeds in the store, but get them yourself from the appropriate varieties at home. If the ripe fruit is covered with brown spots, then the seeds are ripe. Mash the pulp and remove them by hand. Rinse well. Soak for 2-3 days in water at room temperature, changing the water periodically. Then we wipe the seeds and lightly scrape them. The seeds must be brown shades. After this, we plant according to the usual pattern.

Advice!

If a tropical crop has grown to the ceiling, then you can trim the top. This will not prevent it from blooming and bearing fruit. But it's better to use dwarf varieties, which are specially created for growing at home. They also produce crops, tolerate cold, and are resistant to diseases.

A wide variety of varieties are grown at home tropical plants, and banana is no exception. You need to plant it according to all the rules and carefully care for it. And then sit down in a chair under a “palm tree” and feel like you’re on vacation in an exotic country.

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28.10.2014

Scientists around the world seriously believe that the banana is one of the plants that interested the first people in ancient prehistoric times. The banana crop is about 10,000 years old, however, this age is imprecise. It is known that the banana came to Southeast Asia as a valuable food plant; it began to be cultivated long before it was grown sugar cane and rice crop. The Hindu folk epic tells the story of the first birth of the banana on the island of Ceylon (Sri Lanka).

Numerous written sources tell us how and where bananas were grown. For example, we can find the first mentions of the wonderful “Indian fruits” in the manuscripts of the ancient Greeks, Arabs and Romans. Banana designs have been found on frescoes in ancient Assyria and Egypt.

Around the 16th century, the banana tree took root well in Africa and became an important food product for such an arid region.

Over the next hundreds of years, the banana spread to Canary Islands and in South America(before the expeditions of Christopher Columbus).

In Europe (early 20th century), the banana won the hearts of townspeople with its unusual appearance, making it one of the important exhibits in any Victorian greenhouse and home winter gardens.

Description, cultivation and care at home

The banana is often incorrectly called a banana tree, but this plant does not have all the characteristics of a tree crop. In fact, banana is a herb that can grow, depending on the type, from 1.5 (domestic banana) to 7.5 m (in wildlife). The massive stem consists of dried leaf petioles. Flowering is abundant and colorful. Fruiting is rich. After the plant produces a harvest, its natural death occurs. Instead of the dying old banana, young offspring appear in the ground around the base, capable of repeating the entire life cycle again.

Growing at home usually does not cause exotic plant lovers serious problems. A purchased young plant can bloom already in the third year of growth. The banana grows green mass quite quickly; under favorable conditions, it develops at least one leaf per week during the growing season.

Depending on age, banana leaves can be up to 2.5 m long and up to 60 cm wide. Their color ranges from deep green, sometimes with burgundy inclusions, to green at the top and reddish at the bottom of the leaf.

When properly maintained, a banana can bloom and produce quite edible fruits (depending on the type). The flowers are usually yellow and red in color and are grouped in compact apical inflorescences. Banana fruits are commonly called berries. The color of the fruit at the beginning of its ripening is green, gradually changing to yellow or red. The taste is pronounced, usually sweet, less often with sourness, somewhat reminiscent of an apple.

Banana from seeds

Growing a banana at home is an unusually painstaking task, but no less interesting. Many people will be surprised that bananas have seeds. Just remember purchased bunches of bananas: no matter how much we eat them, unfortunately, we cannot find any seeds in them. Those who like to plant something from the seed of a fruit they have just eaten have probably seen in the banana fruit the rudiments of seeds that are not capable of germinating when planted. What is sold in our supermarkets and markets has been commercially produced.

Wild species are characterized by the abundant presence of seeds - sometimes it is difficult to see the pulp, but no one would buy such fruits. That is why the banana is gradually artificially modified, obtaining more sweet pulp and a minimum of seeds. The inability of mature individuals to produce seeds is covered entirely by vegetative propagation of well-performing crops.

For those who are not looking for easy ways and want to grow a banana on their own, we can advise you to use purchased seeds. Often on sale you can see indoor banana seeds, which rarely grow above one and a half meters, which is especially important for residents of small houses.

The water can be changed, but no more than 2-3 times throughout the entire period;

After the expiration date, the seeds must be cleaned of any remaining pulp and mucus;

Planting in the ground is carried out at a distance of 8-10 cm from each other. However, it will be better if you plant the seeds in separate pots, then during replanting the risk of damage to the roots will be minimal.

A homemade banana may be smaller in size than plants displayed in flower shops and will not bloom soon. But grown in the microclimate of your home, it will get sick less often and most likely produce the richest harvest.

Lighting

Homemade bananas need bright sunlight during the growing season. During the midday sun, many gardeners recommend shading the banana from the strong heat. In winter, to ensure normal height banana, it is necessary to install additional lighting.

If grown on a windowsill, you need to make sure that the leaves do not touch the glass (they can get burned) and that there is no draft. Sudden changes in temperature do not have the most favorable effect on the plant, since it is still a tropical crop and is alien to the sometimes harsh weather of other countries.

Watering

Banana is not one of those plants that will forgive you for overwatering or drought of an earthen coma. It is necessary to water the banana only after it dries out. upper layer soil. Water the plant abundantly, until the first drops in the pan. By the way, excess water It is advisable to immediately pour it out of the pan, since excessive waterlogging will lead to souring of the soil and rot of the root system.

Overdrying the soil will lead to the death of the roots, and even if watering is resumed, the surviving roots will not be able to fully provide nutrition to the vegetative part and it is quite possible that some of the foliage will die off naturally.

In summer, bananas are watered with plenty of settled water closer to room temperature. When the temperature drops to +16°C, watering is significantly reduced. In the summer months, banana simply loves daily spraying from a spray bottle.

This must be done in the morning or evening to prevent sun rays on wet leaves. In winter, spraying is either stopped altogether or carried out no more than once a week.

Choosing a pot

Despite the fact that banana is an unpretentious plant, an important part of its successful maintenance is making the right choice pot. For young plants no more than 20 cm high, a 2-3 liter pot is sufficient.

A plant that has exceeded the half-meter mark can be safely transplanted into a container with a volume of up to 20 liters. Maximum size 50 liter pot. However, it is important to remember that immediately transplanting a plant into a pot is too large sizes should not be done, the roots may rot, which will cause the plant to become unwell. There's no time for flowering here.

Soil selection

Soil for bananas is easy to buy at any garden store, however, you can prepare the necessary soil mixture yourself. To do this, we need ordinary universal soil based on vermicompost (1 l), to which it is recommended to add river sand (2 l) and wood ash(0.5 l).

It is advisable to line the bottom of the pot with a layer of expanded clay for good drainage soil. The seedling is always planted a little deeper than it grew before. Thus, many adventitious roots are formed on its trunk, accelerating its growth and development. It is recommended not to clog the drainage holes; with their help, oxygen will flow into the pot directly to the roots of the plant.

Top dressing

Indoor bananas are fed once a week during the growing season, and no more than once a month during the dormant period. Fertilizers based on vermicompost are perfect for feeding. Fertilize only with liquid fertilizers during watering; other methods of fertilizing can accidentally burn young developing roots.

Possible difficulties

Bananas have virtually no pests. Inspect the leaves of the plant daily for pests or diseases, especially if you have a recently purchased specimen that has not yet been quarantined. As a preventative measure, you can loosen the top layer of soil and sprinkle it with tobacco dust no more than once a month. Also, some gardeners water the soil once every six months with a weak solution of potassium manganese. And avoid drafts!

Growing a banana at home is quite easy, compared to such fancy plants as azalea or orchid. The main thing is to monitor the degree and frequency of watering. A banana can be called ripe when it has 13–17 well-developed leaves. Usually during this period, a huge bud with a color closer to a red-violet hue appears at the top of the plant. The flowering itself is often delayed for a year, during which the bud descends and continues to form small rudiments of fruits, while other fruits are fully ripe.

To replace the already boring exotic flower, banana is increasingly becoming the object of desire of many seasoned flower growers. Beginners who love this plant should also not be afraid to have a banana in their home, since it is quite unpretentious and can easily fit into the size of the room. Try and experiment! Good luck!