Bananas and pineapples grow in tropical Britain

 

Last updated at 16:30pm on 8th June 2007 Comments (2)

They look like they were grown in a tropical plantation, but amateur gardeners in Britain have managed to cultivate pineapples in Essex and bananas in Maidenhead.

Olwyn Asher grew her pineapple on her window sill. She started with the discarded crown of a supermarket-bought fruit two years ago.

Mrs Asher, 60, placed the cutting from the top of the pineapple into a dish of water by a window at her home in Harlow, and potted the plant when roots began to sprout.

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Sweet success: A fruit grown on the pineapple plant which Olwyn Asher grew at her home in Essex

 

 

After outgrowing its pot, the maturing plant was transferred into the Ashers' garden where a sizeable pineapple is now ripening in the early summer sun.

 

"I was happy with the bushy plant," Mrs Asher said.

"I didn't even dream it would do anything more than that."

Leigh Hunter, a horticultural adviser from the RHA, said: "To get a pineapple top to root is not too difficult and is a common project for schoolchildren.

"But getting the plant to grow on and fruit is quite rare.

"The pineapple is a big fan of tropical conditions. It is the high humidity that a lot of gardeners can't provide in order for the plant to fruit."

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Sellamuttu Krishnasamy is thrilled with his banana plant

 

Meanwhile, a seventy-old gardener originally from Sri Lanka, was thrilled when he managed to produce fruit from a group of banana trees in Maidenhead, more commonly found in his homeland.

"I love bananas," Sellamuttu Krishnasamy said.

"This is the first one I've had and I was really happy because I haven't seen one anywhere else. It is opening up but it takes quite some time."

After ordering the plant seeds several years ago he placed them in a sheltered spot by a south-facing wall at the end of the garden at his semi-detached home in Maidenhead. From just one seedling, a bit of loving care has expanded his crop to 10 plants.

Each winter, as the leaves dropped off, he has covered each plant to protect it from the cold, opening it up again to the sun's rays in the spring.

"I don't do anything special. I just put a bit of ground feed down," he said.

The largest of the crop now stretches to almost 12ft in height.

 

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