When to Cut Back Banana Plants After Freezing Weather?

Effects of Frost

• A light frost, with temperatures briefly in the range of 30 to 32 degrees Fahrenheit, causes foliage and stems to brown and die back from ruptured cells in the living tissues. More than six hours below freezing effectively kills all above-ground stems and leaves on a banana plant. The dead tissues insulate and buffer the cold so it can't reach downward to the vital growing buds on the underground rhizomes. Once warmth returns, bananas regenerate from the ground.

Cutting Plants Back

• Do not be too hasty to cut back frost-killed leaves and stems on banana plants, especially if it's early in fall or winter when additional nights of frosts or freezes are likely. Trim off ugly dead leaves to tidy the banana plant clump, but do not cut stems to the ground. Removing the stems exposes the soil, making it warm up faster and prematurely coaxing new leafy shoots to sprout when late frosts could still occur and further injure the plant.

Timing Insight

• In subtropical parts of the United States, such as in USDA plant hardiness zone 9 and 10a, do not fully cut back dead banana stems until early March, when frosts are no longer expected. Farther north, it's best to cut back cold-killed banana stems after midwinter as the season begins to warm and transition into springlike temperatures. If necessary to tidy the garden, cut back the dead stems to stumps no shorter than 24 inches. The stumps insulate the roots from any unusual bouts of prolonged subfreezing temperatures, especially in USDA zones 7 and 8. By late April, cut away the 2-foot-tall stumps so new growth can emerge unimpeded.

Subtropical Area Insight

• In USDA zones 9 and 10a, allow frost-killed leaves to remain on the plants through the rest of winter. Although it's unsightly, the warm winter sun of these southern latitudes still promotes the youngest shoots in the plant clump to grow. The dead leaves and stems shield these smaller, more tender stems and leaves from cold. Once March 15 arrives, cut back all older, partially and fully cold-damaged tissues to fully expose the array of young green stems so they can quickly grow and fill out more quickly than if the entire plant was cut back to the ground.