Watering Banana Plants
Watering requirements for banana plants can vary slightly depending on whether you choose to plant them in the ground or in a container on your patio or porch. These guidelines will help get your banana tree off to a great start.
NOTE: This is part 10 in a series of 11 articles. For a complete background on how to grow banana plants, we recommend starting from the beginning.
Container-Grown Guidelines
- Closely watch your container grown banana plant to see that they do not dry out. Water them when the soil is dry down to a ½ inch below the soil’s surface.
- An occasional deep watering is also helpful.
Ground-Planting Guidelines
- If your banana plant is in the ground and you receive an inch of rainfall every week or so, you won’t need to provide additional water. But if it gets really dry, you can give your plant a good, thorough soaking. The best way to do this is to let your garden hose trickle slowly. This gives the water a chance to soak in instead of running off. You can also use a soaker hose to water several trees at once.
- It’s important to note that even if you’re in the midst of a brown-lawn drought, you don’t want to water too much. Once a week is plenty. Worse than dry, thirsty roots is waterlogged, drowning roots.
