Echo Street Wildlife

Banana Plant - December 1996


In the summer of 1995, I cleared the weeds from a planter right next to the house- The insurance company wanted a clean picture of the back of the house. I bought a 2' tall banana plant from the local nursery, thinking it would make it look like there was a real plant for the picture, and then it'd die, like the rest of my attempts at gardening have.

It didn't.

Then, my banana plant grew a flower. A big flower. This flower was nearly two feet across, and almost three feet deep- about the size the banana plant itself was when I got it, a year and a half earlier.

Then we got the house painted. The flower wasn't doing well- turning brown and droopy. the painters cut the flower off, because it was getting in their way, and was dripping sweet sticky stuff. The plant appears to be dying, and has developed straight, deep cracks in a spiral pattern around its base, as if perhaps it's trying to weaken itself so it'll fall down in the next windstorm. the upper leaves have been getting browner, appearing to be getting less and less food from the plant. I suppose it will die completely soon.

Frog and Snail on Front Porch - 30 December 1996