I found a seller with the California Gold. They are a family run business and I have seen them around the banana forums so I think they are likely trustworthy on what they are selling. They also have the Ice Cream Blue Java.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B09BMCT6XT?ref=ppx_pt2_mob_b_prod_image
This is their website: https://www.bountifulgardennursery.com/
but they had more product listed on amazon.
Wow! Are you sure that Amazon listing is really them? I don’t see California Gold on their website, which makes me think the Amazon listing may be a fake seller using their name.
California Gold pups are usually only available on places like Ebay for about $100, and even then it’s very rare. So $30 for a real one (including the shipping) would be an amazing deal.
Cool, thank you! Sounds like my original plan (to remove it in summer) is a good one, then.
I was originally planning to remove it in April after our last frost date, but we’ve had a bizarrely cold and wet spring, so I’ve found that I’m extremely grateful I’ve left it on. We’re still getting light frosts some mornings. In late May!
I’ve been starting to wonder if I ought to leave it on year-round, just in case climate change does something insane like send us a frost in July. But it sounds like, as long as I wait until it’s actually starting to feel unpleasant in the greenhouse with the door wide open, I should follow my original plan to remove the plastic in summer. I should just wait until I’m sure nighttime temperatures won’t drop below 50.
Hopefully it is real. I ordered one of each and will update as they grow.
They have an ebay store as well. All the same photos and consistent descriptions between their other listings.
We had a cooler and much wetter spring here as well.
If you were to get a frost that late I would think it would be such a short term event you would not receive much damage. I think your trellised plants would probably take the hit and provide sufficient protection to anything underneath.
More good news: the Ensete maurelli I planted last year survived!
I assumed it had died. It’s a zone 8a plant (I’m in 7b), and it was a foot away from my north wall, not right up against it. I stuck it there in late fall, a few weeks before the first hard freeze, which killed the top of the plant. It didn’t have much in the way of mulch, and it was right near a downspout, which is an asset to bananas in summer and a detriment in winter. I even chopped off half the corm to see if I could get it to propagate a clone indoors (an effort which failed). So it was very much not coddled.
But here it is now, merrily growing along. YAY!
Meanwhile, I have managed to kill two more Musa basjoos. The one I planted near the Ensete maurelli at the same time is dead as a doornail, and the one I stuck in a nice spot in my orchard a few weeks ago is dead as a doornail.
That’s six Musa basjoos I’ve managed to kill now. A 100% failure rate. I’m not sure why. It may be that they’re particularly fragile to root rot, or dry air, or some kind of disease in my soil. It’s possible they’re dying because I’m treating them less gently than the others. But I was really nice to the fourth, fifth, and sixth ones. I treated the corms very gently, I planted them during ideal weather, and I situated them into really cushy, nice, ideal places (three different ones). I watered them no less and no more than the other pups I put in the ground, which are all still alive. They should have thrived.
I’m gradually coming to the conclusion that Musa basjoo may be a lot more fragile than many other banana species, at least in my climate. I haven’t figured out why, though I have lots of theories.
In any case . . . Ensete maurelli seems happy! (Even though I totally mangled the roots before getting it planted out right before the first frost last year.) And so does my new Dwarf Namwah! (Which I’ve been a lot more gentle with.) Yay! 
Update on the bananas I ordered. They got here today.
Everything looks correct. They shipped from the correct location, all seller info seems legitimate.
The plants seem correct too. They are very small, each about 5"-6" tall.
The Dwarf Namwah and Blue Java are very difficult to tell apart with only minor differences, as expected at this stage.
The California Gold is more green.
Huh! The pup you got that was labeled as California Gold does look like a Dwarf Orinoco! Which is how I would expect a California Gold to look, as it’s a sport of Dwarf Orinoco. That’s a good sign! It could be a regular Dwarf Orinoco, but in your zone 8a climate, that would be a great variety to have anyway. 
Yeah for the price, even if it was just a Dwarf orinoco, it would be fine.
Hopefully it is a true C. Gold. I am going to have to research if there is any other way to I.D. besides when it flowers.
Here, this may help!
“As for the question that keeps popping up… Is this plant the same as Dwarf Orinoco? Side by side… CalGold seems more vigorous, more stout and the fruit is less square. My Calgold plants also seem to start growing first in the spring.”
Taken from here:
My guess is that it’ll be easiest to tell if it’s a California Gold or a Dwarf Orinoco if you buy a Dwarf Orinoco pup and watch them side by side for a year or two, but that’s probably only sensible if you really want to know. In your climate, either variety should be good.
Haha, maybe eventually! I have enough bananas for this year. 
That is interesting about the fruit being more square.
I think I’ll just baby it and hope to eventually get it to flower.
California Gold is supposed to flower at around 5’-6’ and Dwarf Orinoco flowers at 6’+. So if it’s under 6’ I would assume it is correct.
I’ll update as they grow.
I struggle with banana seeds too. I think I planted 30 and I got 1 plant - a beautiful pink one though that is now growing in the field.
That’s awesome! Is it a Musa velutina? I hope you get seeds from it, and can plant a whole ton of them and get a whole lot more!
My three baby banana seedlings just died because I forgot to water them for one day (waaaaah! 
). If I had placed them in the shade, they likely would have been fine with being watered every other day for another few weeks, but once the summer heat hit in earnest, they probably would have died anyway because they still would have been too young to be transplanted, and bananas can’t survive in pots here. (The soil dries out lightning fast.) Lesson learned.
So! I will consider that a valuable germination test to prove that they are viable seeds and can be germinated. Now I need to try direct sowing them, to find a way to germinate them that will keep them alive.
I suspect I need to treat them like carrots, which can’t be transplanted and are tricky to germinate because they need moist soil for a long time.
I have some ideas. Let me know what you think.
I think I’ll pick a spot in full shade, and make dents into the soil at regular intervals with my finger. I’ll make sure the soil is very compacted in those dents and press the banana seed into the bottom. That will make a little tiny swale, to keep the highest possible soil moisture around them. Then I’ll place a hay mulch on top, which will help keep in even more moisture, but will still let in enough air that the seedlings won’t think 100% humidity is a realistic expectation. (It should hopefully also let in enough air to ensure the seedlings won’t be eaten by roly polies.) Then I will water that area approximately every other day . . . or a bit less often . . . (if I plan on every other day, once or twice a week is likely to be what happens, so this will definitely need to be in full shade).
Another possible idea is to plant brassicas and bush beans in the same area, under the same hay mulch. I expect them to be good companion crops for bananas, and it’s possible their leaves may help keep the soil moister for the germinating banana seeds. I don’t expect them to cause problems for the bananas, and they may help – possibly directly, by shading the soil, or possibly indirectly, by motivating me to keep on watering the area because I have something I value growing there that I can see. 
Another possible idea is to do the same thing, except cover the whole area with a sheet of cardboard instead, and check carefully to see if any germination has happened whenever I lift up the cardboard to water it. This is supposed to be a great way to germinate carrot seeds, so it may work well for banana seeds, too. It’s probably worth a test, at least.
Another possible idea is to do the same thing, and sprinkle carrot seeds around the same area. This may be a disadvantage because I’d have to remove the cardboard after only a week or two, once the carrots have germinated (banana seeds can take months to germinate). But it may be an advantage because it will work similarly to motivate me to keep the area watered.
Hmmm, and maybe trying an area with fenugreek would be another good idea, because that’s a legume I really want to grow a lot of, just like peas.
Okay, that’s five different possible test plots. Does anyone else have any other good ideas? I think running an experiment with 8-10 different test plots might be a great idea. Then I’ll get a yield of valuable data, no matter what germination rate I see.
Have you tried really big pots to keep them from drying out so fast?
When I had my previous Dwarf Namwah it was in a 15gal tree container. My new ones are in 7gal containers.
It looks silly having such a small plant in a big container but it retains the moisture more consistently. And bananas grow so fast they fill it up quickly.
I have the opposite problem right now, we are still getting so much rain with no breaks to dry out. I’m glad I didn’t plant in ground. It has been a very weird spring.
Good idea. I probably should try sowing some seeds into a really big pot that I keep in the shade in summer. I’ve been trying that with my strawberry seedlings this year (which are very tiny), and so far, they’re still alive!
Thank you. That’s a really good idea. I’ll add that to my list of things to do.
I live in Michigan and I’m very interested in this project! I know very little about bananas but I know there is HUGE demand for growing something like that up here!
Obviously that’s an even more ambitious ask for my climate but all the same that’s super cool.
I haven’t seen any further banana germination, but I’ve direct sown some seeds into my greenhouse. From what I’ve learned so far, for me:
I planted some banana and canna seeds together in fall and watered them well, hoping to see some germination from both. No germination from the banana seeds yet, but one of the cannas has popped up, so that’s happy!
It appears canna seeds benefit tremendously from scarification – I planted forty unscarified, and none sprouted. Months later, I planted ten scarified, and one sprouted. Definitely an important step.
I will definitely be leaving that canna alone and not moving it at all (until it’s full-grown and I want to harvest some roots in order to eat them, of course 
).
Cannas are of course another plant family entirely, but they’re in the same order, so I think much of the knowledge I pick up from growing the Cannaceae family is likely to be useful for the Musaceae family in similar ways.
