Bananas! Surprise as Suffolk back garden plant bears fruit

“I’ve never heard of it in England myself, so it came as a complete surprise, but now I’m just waiting to see how much bigger they will get,” he added.

“There’s at least 20 of them but I don’t think they will be edible, but I like to think they will be, so I will have to give it a go when they get a bit bigger.

“My friend came from Jamaica and so grew up with bananas and he is quite amazed by this and think’s he’s only ever heard of them being grown in Cornwall.”

Hind bought his banana plant from the Henstead Exotic Garden, run by Andrew Brogan, who said Hind’s bananas “look great” but would not be edible.

“The slightly even worse news is once they flower and fruit, then that particular trunk will die, but it will sprout new ones from the base, so it is interesting,” he said.

Bananas are traditionally grown in humid and tropical conditions, in countries like India, China, Indonesia, Brazil, Ecuador, and the Philippines.

Simon Middleton, from the Norwich-based Tropic Biosciences which created a new variety of banana using gene-editing techniques, said it was “certainly possible to grow banana plants under glass in the UK”.

He added: “Some varieties can also be grown outdoors in a warm, sunny and sheltered position.

“We grow banana plants ourselves here as part of our research. However, getting a banana plant to flower and produce edible fruit is a much greater challenge in the UK climate.

“If [Stephen] has successfully grown a plant that has produced edible fruit, then he has done extremely well.”

Do you have a story suggestion for Suffolk? Contact us below.