Bananas Sprout in Rayleigh Garden After 15 Years of Waiting
Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years
After fifteen years of patience, Peter and Emma Stav in Rayleigh finally saw their banana plants fruit, a feat made possible by rising UK temperatures. Experts like Guy Barter from The Royal Horticultural Society and James Wong note that warmer summers are helping heat-loving plants thrive while traditional crops struggle. Although the Musa Basjoo variety is hardy, the resulting fruit is inedible, yet this botanical shift signals a changing climate for British gardens.
It's basically like having a mouth full of ball bearings with half a teaspoon of banana on them.
- danans
Seems like an opportunity to plug the latest video by my favorite YouTube long form documentary maker, OTR:
The History of the Banana
https://youtu.be/YVVD1cYelUE?is=ADLXFR_-mIMdDfom
Here gets into ancient innovations that allowed bananas to be grown outside of their native habitat in Papua New Guinea.
If you haven't seen his content, and you get sucked in, then settle in without distractions - this is the opposite end of spectrum of TikTok, etc. Also, don't watch his "History of Sugar" documentary if you are feeling depressed. Instead watch the "History of Curry".
- barbazoo
> He pointed out that Musa Basjoos are not really for eating.
> He said: "It's basically like having a mouth full of ball bearings with half a teaspoon of banana on them."
Maybe we can iterate on the texture some more here.
- PaulRobinson
The UK straddles the 55th parallel North. Due to the jet streams (and formerly, trade winds) carrying warm air from the Caribbean, it has often benefitted from a milder climate than other regions at similar latitudes: Alaska, Siberia, the Baltic states.
But this is wild. I am only in my 40s but I've seen the climate change significantly and it having a major impact on flora and fauna.
When I was a kid, English wine was a joke and now it's winning prizes because we have the same climate French vineyards did when I was a child. The idea of growing olives in the UK was laughable, but now in the South East of England it's starting to look commercially viable. Only 10 years ago I remember days with highs over 30C being rare, but we just had two weeks of them, accompanied by tropical nights (not dropping below 20C), for the first time I remember.
And now... bananas. Which is, pun intended, utterly bananas.
It feels too late to stop the worst of the damage, but the idea of this accelerating and getting worse is just astonishing to me, that within my lifetime I'd witness such a huge swing in climatology.
- TabTwo
Last year ours bloomed, too. The problem is that it happens to late in the year and I can’t wrap that 5m high “tree” to protect from the cold. So the bananas were the size of your pinky. Next problem, once they bloom, they die. So yes, climate change is real. For comparison, we are located in south Germany near Stuttgart and we also have a fig tree and an olive tree in our garden.
- comrade1234
I have a paw paw tree that has survived 7 years in northern Wisconsin. Unfortunately it is the only one out of five that I planted that has survived and so I'll never get fruit because they reproduce sexually and as far as I know the closest one is 4 hours south in Madison.
- forinti
In South America there's a very aggressive spider that lives on the bananas (genus Phoneutria). Spiders usually shy away from humans but these attack and have a very nasty venom. I wonder if the heat will take nasty critters to Europe.
- alexpotato
This reminds me of the stone carvings found in Scotland showing grape vines growing there.
In other words, it used to be MUCH warmer in the northern latitudes.
- sinuhe69
With these heatwaves, many cities in France, Italy and England are at times *hotter* than cities in the tropical SEA! No wonder the bananas are starting to fruit.