Musa 'Kru'

Product Details:

Ships bare rooted. 1-2 feet in height.

Musa 'Kru'- Another highly rated banana for excellent taste, Kru is a rare recent import from New Guinea. This is also a very colorful banana fruit with deep shade of red on the pseudostem; the bananas are a mix of red and green shades. This is a very distinctive banana cultivar and can easily be recognized from a distance. A sturdy plant suited to home gardens and the greenhouse and well suited to containers. A must for serious collectors.

Banana leaves, pseudostem (trunk) and fruiting stem (raceme) grow from the underground rhizome (or pseudobulb's) top surface and the roots grow from the lower surface of the rhizome. The fleshy stems sheathed with huge broad leaves can grow from 2 to 35 feet in as little as 1 year, depending on variety and growing environment. Each pseudostem produces one flower cluster, which develops fruit, then dies. In addition each parent banana plant during its life cycle, will produce as many as 10 suckers which grow into new plants. New pseudostems then grow from the rhizome.

Bananas grow best in a uniformly warm environment and need 9 to 15 months of frost-free conditions to produce a flower stalk. In the subtropics, fruit ripens in 2-3 months. In cooler climates it may take several weeks longer to ripen. Plant growth stops when temperatures drop to 57°F. Stokes Tropicals' Banana Blend (6-2-12) is the best fertilizer source for these fascinating tropical giants.