LEYTONSTONE: Cool summer brings banana bonanza

11:03am Friday 10th October 2008

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DESPITE a wet and disappointing summer, a green-fingered enthusiast has succeeded in growing tropical fruit in her garden.

Sonia Dixon bought a banana plant from Columbia Road Flower Market in Hackney four years ago and has been tending it carefully, feeding it chicken manure ever since.

But following a grey British summer, she was amazed to see it bear fruit for the first time in her garden in Grove Green Road, Leytonstone.

The charity worker said: “My friend grew one on a roof garden in central London, so I decided to give it a try and planted it outside to see what happened.

“I really looked after it and kept it covered for the first couple of years, but the weather didn’t seem to beat it.

“I looked at it recently and noticed a leaf. Then I showed my neighbour who is a science teacher, and they said it was surprising but it looked like fruit. They are just coming through now.

My neighbours have been very impressed. A few of my friends think I am mad but everyone keeps talking about it. I don’t do anything special, I just like gardening.”

Her 80-year-old mother, Theresa, is also a keen gardener and has a smaller banana plant indoors at the home they share.

She said: “I told Sonia it wouldn’t grow because it is not Kew Gardens – but it grew. My neighbours are excited. They are very curious and like to have a look, so we show them and they laugh.”

Mrs Dixon believes her daughter may have been inspired by her grandfather’s banana plantation in Jamaica and wanted to see if she could get similar results.

Asked whether she had any plans to grow more varieties of tropical plants in Leytonstone, Ms Dixon said: “I was saying to my friends that I might go to Wisley Plant Centre and try something else – so we shall see.”