My Banana plants - malevolent destroyers or benign herbs?

[MLS]

Hello! I should be grateful for advice from gardeners and maybe builders...
I have a small row of banana plants about six feet away from my house wall and right against the boundary wall with my two neighbors. Personally, I love the plants as they provide privacy, a bit of a jungly feel to the place - and, of course, bananas - and they haven't been attracting snakes or rats. But I've been warned that banana plants and their long roots, like most trees, will ultimately destroy anything structural near them, so for the sake of my house and the boundary wall I am being advised to urgently get rid of them, and to dig deep to make sure no roots remain.
What's your experience? Is it daft to think I could keep the plants and they'll behave if kept well pruned (which of course I'm happy to pay my gardening service to do regularly), or are the roots probably already causing unseen-as-yet cracks in my house and the boundary wall?
My thanks for any advice you may have.
Cheers!

[PeteC]

I personally don't think you'll have any problem, or at least have not heard of any problems. I know of many resorts that have them planted close to pools and buildings and I doubt they would do that if the roots would be invasive and damaging. I have about 6 planted about 15 feet from a house, 2 feet from a wall, and 2 feet from a walkway and so far after two years I have no problem. The roots do spread as you'll get new plants popping up from the base of an older plant and I guess over a great deal of time new plants may be as far as 6-10 feet away from the original plant, but again I think if they encounter any hard surface such as a concrete walk/driveway, wall etc, they just divert to a surface with softer soil. Below is an article that may be helpful. Pete

http://www.ehow.com/info_8707552_banana-tree-roots.html

[Frank Hovis]

Agree with prcscct, Bananas are benign.
Their 'roots', such as they are, are very soft and mushy and don't extend far from the plant - while a mature banana will shoot up loads of suckers and will easily lift big chunks of soil and other debris (their own leaves and old stumps usually) they will not sprout up under concrete.
But their sap has a habit of discoloring things, to a dull brown, so if the leaves are constantly rubbing on the wall it will discolor the paint.
Surely not a Thai person that advised you to dig them out - they don't even have deep roots ! Maybe you need a more knowledgeable gardener, or one that doesn't just make work for himself !

There are plenty other real trees that will destroy a wall in no time, Delonix Regia, (in Thai it's like don hang nok yung) a big frondy leaved tree with red wisteria like flowers, will have a wall down within a few years of planting a sapling.

[STEVE G]

Our house up in Issan has several large banana trees just the other side of a wall and concrete walkway and about three metres from the house and they've had no effect after six years. To be honest, it's not something I ever gave any thought to until reading this post today.

[PeteC]

The stuff I call ginger plants (some call it bird of paradise) are more of a disaster than bananas will ever be. Those ginger plants will spread a massive root system and it will push up paving bricks and walkway thickness concrete. I spent an entire day last week digging up a 10' x 3' area where they were planted and talk about blood work getting all the roots out! Pete

[MLS]

Many thanks for the very helpful and welcome replies! Actually, It's only the neighbors who want the banana plants removed; our gardening service seems happy to go along with whatever we ask them to do, and I think I'll be asking them to manage the banana plants properly with some judicious trimming and tidying.
But that bit about those 'birds of paradise' plants has got me worried now, prcscct! Got 'em everywhere...

[PeteC]

.......But that bit about those 'birds of paradise' plants has got me worried now, prcscct! Got 'em everywhere...

From sad experience......unless you have some kind of concrete border at least 50cm deep, they will eventually get under it and throw roots out and keep going until they finally hit something they can't get through or under.

We had them at the north end of our pool and of course they couldn't penetrate that or 2 meters deep to get under it. They did go the other way though and pushed up 4" thick pavings stones and a 5" thick concrete border. We finally had them dug up and as we did, we saw that the root clusters were down 30-40cm deep. Small pieces break off the roots as you remove them and one only the size of your thumb will re-grow a plant and more roots again. You really need to use poison after you dig them up to assure all the roots die.

These are not overnight events but takes months. You'll see it happening as you'll see new shoots popping up outside the main planted area and then basically a new shoot every few inches on forever until you go in and dig them up to stop the spread. Pretty plants, make a great privacy screen and tropical landscape but you really have to keep on top of them. We're now using the below as privacy screens, wind blocks etc. Not very tropical but the best we've found for the purpose, easy to care for and pretty IMO. Pete

images.jpg (12.63 KiB) Viewed 6553 times

[Takiap]

The stuff I call ginger plants (some call it bird of paradise) are more of a disaster than bananas will ever be. Those ginger plants will spread a massive root system and it will push up paving bricks and walkway thickness concrete. I spent an entire day last week digging up a 10' x 3' area where they were planted and talk about blood work getting all the roots out! Pete

Hi Pete, Bird of Paradise is not a ginger plant, but like you say, they can be very invasive. Ginger plants do of course spread as well, but many are seasonal, and die off as the dry season kicks in, regardless of how much water they get. You'll also find gingers are a lot more attractive, so if you want a nicely behaved plant to replace those you removed, I would certainly recommend gingers. Even the regular ginger used for cooking makes a great garden plant, as does galangal. Both are also evergreens. Just stick bits of the root into the ground, and water. You may have to thin them out every two to three years, and of course you'll be able to harvest your own fresh ginger and galangal as well. Turmeric is another nice garden plant, but it's seasonal.



As far as bananas are concerned...................they DO NOT damage anything at all. The worst thing about them is having to cut them down once they've given fruit......lol.

[kalbow]

Just as an aside, I think the banana tree is from the ginger family.

Cheers
Kalbow

[dtaai-maai]

Just as an aside, I think the banana tree is from the ginger family.

That's bad luck. So was I, and I got called all sorts of names when I was a kid.

[sateeb]

Q. Do bananas grow on trees?
A. A common misconception is that bananas come from banana trees, when in fact the banana is closely related to ginger and ornamental plants such as birds of paradise, amaranths and canna lilies. The banana plant is not a tree, but the world's largest perennial herb and grows up to 25 feet, developing massive banana leaves that may extend 9 feet in the air. Edible bananas are technically berries and do not produce seeds. Their rhizomes, or roots, can be hundreds of years old.

From http://www.chiquitabananas.com/Worlds-F ... -faqs.aspx