A cold-hardy banana tree with maroon striped leaves, a snowbell tree that reblooms, and several more ever-higher-performing hydrangeas are among the most interesting new trees and shrubs hitting ...

As for the banana tree, it's a seldom-fruiting hardy type called Musa basjoo. "I got a 'pup' at Lowe's in a little pot for $5.98 last May," he says. "Look at it now. It's about 10 feet tall.

Banana Tree (Musa Basjoo) Frank Rothe / Getty Images This type of cold-hardy banana tree is actually a large plant—the "trunk" is a pseudostem made up of bound banana leaves.

The best way to protect these plants is to cover them if temperatures are forecast to dip below the mid-20s. Covering plants with sheets or tarps will add about 4 degrees of warmth, which is ...

However, there are now a few banana plants that are cold-hardy and able to withstand temperatures of -5 degrees without protection, and -20 with a heavy winter mulch.

Bamboos are the perfect plant for a tropical garden; they are reliably hardy, evergreen and with a small footprint so they ...

Hardy banana plants reach 12-18 feet tall with ample water and fertilizer, but its fruit, if produced at all, isn't edible. Still, the plant has considerable value in the landscape as an attention ...

Hardy banana dwarfing the otherwise-large leaves of Elephant Ear in a mixed garden bed. Q: I’m a relative newcomer to Maryland but have always been attracted to the garden aesthetic of tropical ...

I guess I have been a bit cavalier in my approach to wrapping banana trees. My habit has been to simply wrap some newspapers around the trunk and then some plastic around the newspapers for winter ...

Yes, I did just say “hardy,” for as incredulous as it may sound, there is a very reliable banana plant that we can grow here in the Northwest that will establish itself and return season after ...