Bananas in 1 fot of soil?

[Palmfarmer]

Got an area that got only about one fot of soil. Would planting bananas there work out? How about a giant bird of Paradise? 

I could not find the other exotic plants catogory so I posted here instead. 

[Merlyn]

You can get to the Others forum by hitting the "Home" button, it is here: https://www.palmtalk.org/forum/forum/4-tropical-looking-plants-other-than-palms/

I suppose you could grow some of the smaller bananas like Bordelon, which have thin culms and small root balls.  Most of them have a pretty stout base diameter, and might need 2' of soil to grow into. 

White Bird of Paradise might work, I transplanted some of those a few weeks ago and the culms sort of stopped at ground level and had just roots below it.

[dalmatiansoap]

Most ornamentals would do fine, Ornata would be my favorite 😍

[Robbertico18]

Do you only have one foot deep soil or one foot wide?

I second Meryln tho the bordelon is a pretty leaved banana with a nice pink flower!

[Palmfarmer]

1 hour ago, Robbertico18 said:

Do you only have one foot deep soil or one foot wide?

I second Meryln tho the bordelon is a pretty leaved banana with a nice pink flower!

Yes one fot of depth. Your look amazing. 

The Bananas I have are all edible ones and not dwarfs. Perhaps I should mound up a foot of soil before planting? 

[Brad52]

Mine were planted in mounds on top of solid lava with about 2” of ‘soil’ and do just fine here.  I give them all of the leaves I prune and use the spent pseudostems on other plants to build soil.  I’m getting around 700-1,000 pounds of fruit a year from 12 planted starts which are now 2 groves.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Brad52

[Robbertico18]

3 hours ago, Palmfarmer said:

Yes one fot of depth. Your look amazing. 

The Bananas I have are all edible ones and not dwarfs. Perhaps I should mound up a foot of soil before planting? 

I have very heavy clay soil in my yard and ended up turning my old compost pile into the banana garden that the bordelons grow in so it sits about a foot and a half above the clay soil 

[Palmfarmer]

5 hours ago, Robbertico18 said:

I have very heavy clay soil in my yard and ended up turning my old compost pile into the banana garden that the bordelons grow in so it sits about a foot and a half above the clay soil 

I have allready enhanced my mucky soil with 50kg of worm castings in the area. Will lay down another 50 and plant the bananas. 

Does anyone know if bananas produce roots further up the stem if they are mulched heavily?