Q: I have had a banana tree for five years. I was told that bananas will not grow on the tree. For four years there was nothing but this year I noticed a growth on one of the trees.

A: You sure enough have a flowering banana! Now all you need is a month of hot temperatures to get it to produce banana fruit. Since it is now November, I don’t hold much hope. Mine is doing the same thing so I made a wire cage around the stalk and filled it with leaves. I then covered the leaves with plastic, to shed rain and keep them dry in winter.

I’m sure the top of the plant and the bloom stalk will be killed in winter but MAYBE it will bloom again next year. I removed a couple of suckers from the base of my plant to bring inside, just in case the mother plant doesn’t make it.