UK: Pub beer garden grows bananas – which it will turn into cocktails
The Royal Horticultural Society says that banana plants will rarely flower outdoors in the UK due to weather conditions
Longview News Journal
SWNS – Raw Aug 16, 2023
Excerpt:
Britain’s barmy weather has seen a pub beer garden sprout bananas – which it will now turn into cocktails. The tropical fruit has appeared at the Clarence pub in Hastings in East Sussex – after the plant flowered for the first time ever. Landlord Steve ‘Widget’ Weir notice the banana plant had started flowering after six years of doing nothing. He joked the boozer may use them to ”do our own range of banana daiquiri cocktails’. Originally grown by local regular and keen gardener Steve Sivell, the plant was installed in a sheltered area of the pub garden after high winds threatened to damage it at his allotment.
Mr Sivell said: “It was being battered by the wind so I brought it to the pub garden in a sheltered spot. “It has been here for five or six years, but this is the first time it has flowered.” Pictures of the plant show the ‘cluster’ of flowers that will eventually become bananas emerging from atop the trunk of the plant – the first stage of the fruit’s development. The Royal Horticultural Society says that banana plants will rarely flower outdoors in the UK due to weather conditions – but can be grown indoors. Landlord Steve said: “We were amazed when we spotted it. We may have to do our own range of banana daiquiri cocktails now.”
