It started with only 10 banana trees. Vincent Scholten saw a few bananas at a Monterey area nursery and became intrigued. As a grower who likes to experiment with new things, he toted them home to see how they would do in his greenhouse.
He didn't get to keep them very long.
At his next weekend plant sale, shoppers spotted the plants he intended just for himself and quickly bought him out. So he drove back to the same nursery and hauled home 25 more. After tapping out that source, he found a San Diego supplier with 203 varieties.
Before he knew it, Scholten was in the banana business, managing his own mini plantation inside a 16,880 square-foot warehouse east of Sebastopol. While still small, his Sebastopol Banana Company is one of the larger banana nurseries in the state, feeding a constituency of gardeners who crave the tropical look or who have a taste for the rare and unusual.
"It just kind of found us. It was fun and happened really fast," he says.
Although they're still an oddity in a home garden, you can grow bananas on the North Coast if you choose a more adaptable variety, give it the water and drainage it needs and protect it during any prolonged periods of frost.
Under the name NorCal Growers, Scholten also grows other tropical companion plants, espaliered fruit trees and greenhouse vegetables for local restaurants.
He flies quietly under the radar and doesn't advertise. But banana fans from all over California and beyond manage to find him, many at the annual Scion Exchange put on by the Redwood Chapter of the California Rare Fruit Growers.
The big annual winter exchange is from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the Sebastopol Veterans Building, 282 High St. Here anyone from novice gardener to serious grower is welcome to come by to stock up on scions - tiny cuttings - and plants. Many are free or priced nominally. A $5 donation is asked at the door to offset rental of the hall.
Inside is a huge bowl of options - some 500 different varieties of common, rare and experimental plants and trees, as well as grafting and planting demonstration classes. Experts and hobby growers will be on hand to answer questions. Attendees should bring one-gallon plastic bags, tape and pens to mark their acquisitions.
Scholten and his bananas, which he sells nominally for a few dollars up to $10 for a large bare-root plant, is always a popular attraction that sells out by the end of the day.
Although initially he offered up to 60 varieties, he found that too many options proved bewildering to a public unfamiliar with bananas. So he has whittled his choices down to a handful, including the popular Ice Cream, which many people find produces a fruit with a taste faintly reminiscent of vanilla ice cream. There are also many nice ornamental varieties that don't produce edible fruit but look great in a tropical landscape.
Among the Rare Fruit Growers are people who are intrigued by the unusual, those challenged to push the limits of their climate zones and and many who are concerned about preserving heritage varieties that are rarely or no longer grown commercially.
Bananas may appeal to the extreme gardeners but they aren't that tough to grow, says Scholten, if you plant the right variety in the right place and give it the conditions it needs. After much experimentation, he has winnowed his collection down to varieties that are native to higher elevations and can survive better with cooler winters.
Inside Scholten's unheated greenhouse - he simply can't afford the $10,000 a month it would cost to warm it - there is little hint of the magical paradise it will become in a few months. A recent spate of freezing temperatures have left the lush green leaves brown and droopy. But unless they are subjected to a sustained hard frost without protection, the plants won't die. Scholten prunes off the dead leaves, leaving a bare stalk. After just a couple of days of warm weather they will start to push new growth. Once the warm weather really hits in April and May, they grow insanely fast.
But even these more adapted varieties need a warm spring to bear fruit. Back-to-back cold winters left him with no fruit for the last two years. But if you're blessed with a warm spring, he says you can expect anywhere from 200 to 800 pounds of bananas per clump. And they will continue to produce from late spring to mid fall.
Even if they don't fruit, they're a beautiful, fast-growing plant that can quickly fill in bare areas and provide screening, like bamboo.
"They have a very shallow root system. It's what they call a foot. It just grows out on the surface," he says.
They like well-drained, loamy soil. Choose a warmer spot, such as a south facing wall for the best results. They do need a lot of water. In winter, they go dormant and need little additional irrigation. Yet once they start pushing and the days warm, they need what Scholten estimates at about a gallon a day.
Raised in Dixon, Scholten studied horticulture at Santa Rosa Junior College, where he met his wife Lynn, daughter of longtime ag teacher Jim Porter. She now teaches agriculture at El Molino High School. Scholten transferred to Cal Poly but left in disappointment just shy of a degree, frustrated with the program's then complete focus on chemical-reliant growing.
Instead, he made his way to The Netherlands (both of his parents are Dutch-born), became a seed breeder and learned greenhouse management.
He and Lynn, who have two kids, found a 15-acre property 10 years ago that had been a big tropical nursery complete with three large greenhouses, including one that is a gargantuan 42,000 square feet.
Scholten is a one-man show, who grows completely naturally without pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizers. He's limited in how much he can grow and he likes it that way. People can stop by at 2100 Pleasant Hill from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekends in April or e-mail norcalgrowers.com.
"I'm happy every single day," declares Sebastopol's banana man. "I have a beautiful wife, two children and a roof over our heads. That's what I'm blessed with."
You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com or at 521-5204.
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