Going BANANAS!

Ok, so I thought I'd introduce you to another hobby of mine...not related to the critters at all... my heart is in the tropics. I am obsessed with palm trees and such....I love tropical plants! I actually looked up trying to grow palms here, which of course isn't typically done in our zone 5 climate, some do, but it takes a lot of prepping for winter, something I'm just not ready for yet. So, I started looking around at different plants I thought I'd like, and of course, every one I liked was not suitable for our zone. Again, I have a tropical heart. Well, I found a way around it! I found something that looks tropical, like the palm trees, but is easier for me to care for in the wintertime, yes, they need care...but not as much as the palm trees in WI would...banana trees! I bought me a couple of small, fast growing banana trees...and after an acclimation process, they've really taken off! I do have to water them daily, and fertilize them weekly, but it's paying off....my musa basjoos are producing pups (baby banana trees, suckers, if you will). My larger, fuller of the two has four pups (as of today, one just popped up today!), and the other one has one. I'm going to leave them on the mother corm till spring....my plan is, since the mother plants themselves are young yet, to dig them up and bring them inside for this winter... but after this winter, they'll winter outside with some care. I plan to plant them around my deck next year...if separation of the pups goes ok. I have an ensete maurelii out there now, my third banana purchase this year. Ensete maurelii is thicker, beefier than the basjoo, the leaves stay more upright typically, and the leaves are red, with some dark green in there. It's a beautiful tree...mine's quite young yet, so not AS red as it will be, but it's certainly red enough to be pretty, but it's quite small yet. So...I've got a taste for things that aren't supposed to grow here....I have cannas (digging them up and bringing the tubers inside for winter), coleus, persian shield and my bananas for now.....I think I've shared some pics on here...I may have. Anyway.....I'll get a pic of one of the basjoos here to post. The maurelii is pretty small right now, about two feet tall, but it's spitting out new leaves constantly, as you can see in the pic, there's one ready to unroll.