They may look as if they have been grown in a tropical plantation, but these bananas are actually being cultivated in a Larkfield back garden.

The 15ft tall tree belongs to 70-year-old Martin Leaver and his wife Yvonne, 65, who had spent seven years hoping it would bear fruit.

And they nearly jumped out of their skins when it began to flower around two months ago. They now have a bunch of around 70 appeeling green bananas, just waiting to ripen.

Mrs Leaver, of Brooklands Road, said: “I noticed it first. It looked like a pregnant woman with a swollen stomach. I said it was bananas growing but my husband didn’t believe me.”

The couple have four banana trees which they bought from an exotic garden centre.

Yvonne, who was born in Sri Lanka, puts the remarkable success down to her the advice of her mother, who has been nurturing banana trees in her own garden on the south Asian island for years.

The regime involves ruthlessly picking away the young shoots, and weighing the bananas down with a stone to make them longer.

They are tricky to grow, requiring nine to 15 sunny months with an optimum temperature of 27°C to fruit, followed by a further two to four months to ripen. But banana trees can flower in temperatures as low at 15°C.

Mr Leaver, a retired driving instructor, said: “It was jolly exciting. I don’t know if they will ripen but we have plenty of Sri Lankan dishes they can go into if they do. Generally they take around three months so we may run out of summer.

“But I think the warm weather has definitely helped.

“Luckily we both like bananas. If all our trees fruit we can go into business.”

The couple also keep chickens and a tortoise, and live close to where missing 10ft-long python Zombie was spotted in Chaucer Way.

Mr Leaver added: “We are hoping we won’t be the ones to find it, but it would be at home in our exotic garden.”