Hard to see for all the bananas!, The Tropical black is front left(12 ft),
the Old Hamaii behind and much higher(22ft)

By Fall '03, these two clumps should be dense clumps 25 - 30 ft tall with a couple of dozen 1.5 - 2inch diameter culms each.

You can just see the old stalk has turned black, the new one is about 1 1/4 inch diameter

They haven't gotten enough sun to really take off yet, so I've thinned the Bananas.

Here's the Textilis which has excellent edible shoots! That's all Textilis behind me.   I split a clump into two when I planted.   Each had 4 or 5 culms at 7 - 8 ft.   Now this is 15 feet.

They have been in the ground since April '01, developing rhyzomes. Next year they should send up 1.5 inch diameter culms to 20 - 25 feet. In this setting, all the varities I planted could reach their maximum of 50 - 70 feet within 4 years. Although I'll prune the tops at 25ft to encourage culm development over height as the primary purpose is to be a WINDBREAK for my Bananas.