Martin Pedraza has a passion for growing banana trees. He’s always enjoyed taking care of plants, but his banana collection began when he was given a single small plant and has since grown to include trees all over Rochester that he is growing or has given away over the years. 

You may be wondering about how growing banana trees works in Rochester, New York. Bananas are native to tropical areas, and grow best in those climates. They don’t like snow, which you may have noticed we have an abundance of. Luckily, Martin has a solution to this particular problem. In the fall, he digs his bananas up from the Sofrito Garden and First Street Children’s Garden, community gardens in Rochester where they grow during the summer, and brings them to Harley. Through the snowy months, you can find them on the upper level of the Greenhouse, basking in the sunlight. You may see Martin in the halls as he comes to make the rounds, checking his trees for bugs and giving them an artificial, but fairly convincing, tropical shower.

Although most people water their plants down close to the soil near the roots, Martin puts a lot of stock in the wisdom that these trees have evolved on their own. As the water from the hose sprinkles down from above, it lands in the tightly curled new leaves emerging from each plant’s center. Once they’ve had their fill, these new leaves unfurl under the weight of their load, and the collected water trickles in a spiraling path down the trunk, feeding the roots at the bottom.

Although they are small, it is the things like these that make Martin shake his head at the superiority that humans have assigned ourselves in the natural world. Every creature has the ability to hold its own in this world, its own kind of knowledge. Perhaps we can learn some of it from these little trees. Stop by to visit them and find out for yourself.