A keen elderly gardener has praised the effects of Miracle Gro after her bananas grew so big they snapped her tree in half.

Ms Smith, who refused to give her first name, and her grandson Clyde Thomas, had watched their banana tree as it grew, until it eventually buckled under the weight of its enormous bearing of fruit.

She said after years of growing bananas, she had never seen a bunch quite as big in all her days.

The tree trunk finally gave up the battle this week, when it collapsed under the strain and the bunch of green unripened bananas hit the ground of her Flatts Hill garden in Smith's.

“At first the tree grew really large leaves, they were up to my second storey kitchen window,” said Ms Smith.

“And then the tree began to bend forward, so I put a crate there to help support it.

“I looked under the leaves and I saw the biggest bunch of bananas that I had ever seen. The weight of the bananas kept pulling the tree forward.

“After the Christmas winds, I looked out of my kitchen window and I didn't see my tree, so I came down the steps and I saw that it had fallen down.”

The banana bunch was four feet long, and stacked with dozens of the delicious fruit.

Ms Smith said she had been growing bananas for around eight years, but this had taken the biscuit.

“It all began by a mistake,” she explained.

“A friend of mine came by one day and he had a potted banana plant, but he forgot to take it with him. I waited for a few days figuring that he would come back for it, but he never did, so I planted it.”

Ms Smith said she waters her banana trees every two weeks with MiracleGro, and believed that was the secret to her success.

Since then, she said, her bunches had been getting larger and larger.

She said: “Last year, I had to give bananas away to my friends and neighbours - this year I will do the same, but I have more to give this time.”