Live data from Hacker News

Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

bbc.com

51–60 of 152 posts

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#51
post #25

I saw a banana tree with green bananas in Fribourg Switzerland in September 2025. According to Gemini this city is much colder than Essex, and yet.

> "Could bananas be common in British gardens soon?" Unlikely > I saw a banana tree with green bananas in Switzerland 1) I believe you. This is not rare. Culturing a banana tree is super easy. You can easily find one ornamental dwarf banana for your office in Zurich, put it outside in summer and enjoy the sight of the little green bananas. You just need lots of water, a decent sized pot (bananas can produce fruit in…

> You just need lots of water

They're more like pets in this sense. Really fun plants to have inside though.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#52

I have a paw paw tree that has survived 7 years in northern Wisconsin. Unfortunately it is the only one out of five that I planted that has survived and so I'll never get fruit because they reproduce sexually and as far as I know the closest one is 4 hours south in Madison.

There are dating sites for dogs. You may create a dating site for trees.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#53
post #43
post #19

Seems like an opportunity to plug the latest video by my favorite YouTube long form documentary maker, OTR: The History of the Banana https://youtu.be/YVVD1cYelUE?is=ADLXFR_-mIMdDfom Here gets into ancient innovations that allowed bananas to be grown outside of their native habitat in Papua New Guinea. If you haven't seen his content, and you get sucked in, then settle in without distractions - this is the opposite e…

My favorite is the history of chili pepper. It's something so fundamental to indian cuisine that I assumed chillies were native to India for a long time. His video shows the true history of how that spice travelled from the Americas to all over the globe

When my Korean friends tell me that my cuisine isn't spicy enough: Well... let's talk about that spice.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, got you. Clearly everywhere that recorded record temperatures last month was either next to a runway or in heat islands (which we definitely haven't had for decades) or in someone's garden, whereas all the historical benchmarks exceeded were flawless. The UK recording a temperature of over 40 celsius was actually an anomaly because of the first time a jet ever landed at a British airport. Also the lack of rain wa…

It was clearly hot last month, but that isn't what anyone is arguing about in this thread. Hot months have happened throughout history. inigyou scoffed at the idea the appearance of long term climate change can be caused by immigration. But they shouldn't have scoffed, because it's one of the primary drivers of data difficulties in climatology. Do you accept this fact?

You know what else happened 125 years ago? Less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm sure the reason the UK had its hottest mean June temperature ever and recorded its highest ever June temperature in the village of Lingwood, Norfolk is all down to how many weather stations are located next to runways .

The Lingwood site is class 5 because it's in some guy's garden and surrounded by trees/hedges that block airflow. Class 5 sites have +/- 5 degrees of uncertainty and shouldn't be used for climatology under any circumstances. As to the runway point you're being sarcastic about - yes, that can happen. The UK set a record temperature in July 2022, which the BBC reports was set at Coningsby in Lincolnshire: https://www.b…

But it's still hotter than any previous time 2 typhoon fighters landed.

So unless you want to put that down to the new houses put up, it means that temperatures have gone up.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, got you. Clearly everywhere that recorded record temperatures last month was either next to a runway or in heat islands (which we definitely haven't had for decades) or in someone's garden, whereas all the historical benchmarks exceeded were flawless. The UK recording a temperature of over 40 celsius was actually an anomaly because of the first time a jet ever landed at a British airport. Also the lack of rain wa…

It was clearly hot last month, but that isn't what anyone is arguing about in this thread. Hot months have happened throughout history. inigyou scoffed at the idea the appearance of long term climate change can be caused by immigration. But they shouldn't have scoffed, because it's one of the primary drivers of data difficulties in climatology. Do you accept this fact?

Your argument for "the appearance of long term climate change can be caused by immigration" is that an individual high temperature was recorded at an RAF base, ironically one of the places in the country you're least likely to find an immigrant. It was one of a number of places to record a temperature over 40 degrees, compared with the previous high point of 38.7 degrees (including all the airports and RAF bases and urban heat islands). Indeed even if we choose to believe Toby Young's tinfoil hat brigade's claims that it was definitely boosted by a jet engine and not the more standard explanation for minute-to-minute temperature rises of the sun coming out, it was still hotter than any previous day ever recorded anywhere in the UK before that supposed jet engine landing, and I'm pretty sure we've landed jets there in summer before.

Nobody honestly believes that the reason the UK is recording hotter temperatures all over the country is because immigration is driving Typhoons to land differently at RAF Coningsby

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#57
post #50

In South America there's a very aggressive spider that lives on the bananas (genus Phoneutria). Spiders usually shy away from humans but these attack and have a very nasty venom. I wonder if the heat will take nasty critters to Europe.

Phoneutria are interesting animals. Needed to evolve defenses against the gluttony of monkeys. It must be a tasty spider. It happens that we are monkeys also, so the venom is carefully designed against us.

There is a registered case of a Phoneutria bite in UK at least, and the chef was sent directly to an hospital. To be fair, they dislike the cold so the spider had its reasons to be upset when he opened the fridge to grab a banana.

The spider is easily identified because it has four identical small frontal eyes arranged as a perfect square. Is big, bold and it warns before to attack [1] (most tarantulas are shy). And it jumps, of course. Can hide, once in a blue moon, in exported South American banana bunches (European breed bananas are spider free).

[1] If it raise the legs showing the yellow and black rings beneath is a clear warning saying "get lost right now, of I will land on your face"

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#58
post #19

Seems like an opportunity to plug the latest video by my favorite YouTube long form documentary maker, OTR: The History of the Banana https://youtu.be/YVVD1cYelUE?is=ADLXFR_-mIMdDfom Here gets into ancient innovations that allowed bananas to be grown outside of their native habitat in Papua New Guinea. If you haven't seen his content, and you get sucked in, then settle in without distractions - this is the opposite e…

Sugarcane is also thought to be originally from New Guinea, although it spread widely in prehistory.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#59

I have a paw paw tree that has survived 7 years in northern Wisconsin. Unfortunately it is the only one out of five that I planted that has survived and so I'll never get fruit because they reproduce sexually and as far as I know the closest one is 4 hours south in Madison.

Graft a steam with a different variety and then you will need a lot of flies, or a brush and some artistic strokes in May.

Re: Bananas sprout in Rayleigh Garden UK after 15 years

#60
post #43
post #19

Seems like an opportunity to plug the latest video by my favorite YouTube long form documentary maker, OTR: The History of the Banana https://youtu.be/YVVD1cYelUE?is=ADLXFR_-mIMdDfom Here gets into ancient innovations that allowed bananas to be grown outside of their native habitat in Papua New Guinea. If you haven't seen his content, and you get sucked in, then settle in without distractions - this is the opposite e…

My favorite is the history of chili pepper. It's something so fundamental to indian cuisine that I assumed chillies were native to India for a long time. His video shows the true history of how that spice travelled from the Americas to all over the globe

Have you read Charles C. Mann's book "1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created"? It's all about the global impact of the opening of the New World by the Europeans, and how the global exchange created and is creating the "homogenocene", the age of homogeneity. There's a part about a folk song in the Philippines that lovingly goes over the crops being grown around a village. They're all introduced.
Post reply on HN