Pruning / restarting a birds of paradise tree

Question

Hello I have several large birds of paradise trees (strelitzia nicolai), seen in the picture below.

Since I live in a a seasonal climate they need to be taken indoors over the winter. Unfortunately they have gotten too big this summer and can no longer fit indoors, so I am looking into options to prune and ideally restart them.

My idea is to cut each tree at the red lines shown in the picture. The hope is that after they are cut, eventually when new leaves emerge from the core they will start off smaller then they are currently. as you can notice in the picture the trees have started to sprout mini offshoots at the base of the core plant, my theory is that cutting the core plant will help stimulate more of these offshoots.

Ideally leading to a bushier/thicker but shorter plant.

If anyone has any experience with trimming these plant or similar tropicals like bananas, please share your experiences.

Answer 1

If you want the plants to regrow on the main stem, you can better cut off the leaves one by one at the height of the red lines. But don't cut through the core, cut only the leaves. New growth next year will be from the core, so if you cut that there will be no more growth.

If you only want the suckers to grow next year you can cut the core even lower than where you draw the red lines.