Banana- Lloyd Marsh Tall Namwah Banana

This excellent banana variety was identified by our friend Danny as a worthwhile local selection we should acquire.  This banana was grown by Lloyd Marsh, a Ft Myers fruit grower and prolific volunteer who had become quite elderly and recently passed away.  The new property owner kindly let us collect pups, which involved a winding jungle ride through a thickety forest to the plants that had naturalized on Lloyd’s land over the years.  The last few years of growth have shown this variety to be an excellent banana for our farm, making itself onto our list of our top 3 banana cultivar choices.

To use, it seems apparent that Llloyd’s banana is a variant of tall Namwah banana, though he used to call it “Apple Banana”.  The fruit of Lloyd’s apple is medium sized and is of top tier quality.  The fruit is larger than that of Dwarf Namwah.  On healthy plants, bunches of this variety can reach 50 pounds, making this a more productive variety for us than Dwarf Namwah.

Lloyd’s Apple is a tall variety, reaching maybe 15 feet.  Fortunately the stems stay very upright with a large fruit load and haven’t required too much propping for us.  These tall plants can make an impressive statement in the landscape.  The plants are very vigorous and aggressive about making pups.  Some degree of stem thinning will be necessary to keep the plant from devolving into an unmanaged thicket.  The plants stay beautifully green throughout the year and are tolerant of cool weather.  This banana is well adapted to Florida conditions, evidenced by the fact that it survived all on its own for decades in Mr. Lloyd Marsh’s forest.  We will be scaling up our plantings of this great variety and are excited to share it with others, carrying on the legacy of Lloyd.

We have pruned off the top of these pups to make shipping viable. Though not aesthetically pleasing, this is not a problem for the banana pup. It quickly grows out the top of the cut and resumes normal growth. This practice is common in the banana industry.

Pups shown in photo are similar to what you will receive, but not the actual pup we will ship.

Read about how we ship bananas here.