Help With Banana

---

I have a banana plant that I obtained from a Puerto Rican neighbor who says his family brought the original with them when they immigrated.  It has formed a nice clump, and it flowered once before a couple of years ago in the fall, but a strong wind bent the stalk in half when the baby bananas were only about 4 inches long.  (I wasn't too heart-broken, as there wasn't much chance of them making it through one of our Zone 9 winters unscathed, anyway.)  Here in the Central Valley of California, banana leaves all shrivel up and turn brown every winter, and look pretty unsightly until they are tidied up in the spring.  I was doing just that a little over a week ago, when I noticed that one of the 10 foot stalks had a football-sized terminal flower bud.  I left the bud, but removed all the dead leaves.  It has since started to open, and the first couple of layers have reveale! d 44 miniature bananas with lovely little pink and yellow flowers at their ends!  I'm very excited--I feel like an expectant parent.  I go out and check on them every day!  My question is, does anyone know if these bananas have a chance of maturing without any leaves on their stalk?  Since the flower bud is the terminal bud on the stalk, there won't be any new leaves coming out.  It seems reasonable to assume that the flowering stalk could receive nourishment from the corm since there are other stalks in the clump putting out leaves, but I just don't know.  I guess it can't hurt to just leave it and see what happens, but I thought there might be someone out there who has had a similar experience.  From what I've read, it is necessary to support the flowering stalk as the bananas mature, but for what it would cost to build a 10' scaffold (the price of lumber being what it is), you could buy a lot of bananas!  For the time being, I! 've got my aluminum orchard ladder propped up against the stalk.  Not very attractive, but functional.  Thanks in advance.

 

Kurt Mize

Stockton, California