have the same sentiments, Tony. Those shiny juju Ieaves, fragrant fIowers, and distinctive growth habit make them quite the attractive ‘Iiving ornaments’ one couId have in one’s yard.
Bob,
Outstanding! I’ll have to check into that to see if they are really on their own roots or it’s just a website thing. They are expensive but they have gone up in price. I think I paid about $25 a tree for the Tigertooth trees I got about that size grown on their own roots from Just Fruits & Exotics. I just checked their web site and they are now selling for $46, so the trees on your link are reasonable if really on their own rootstock. I’ll give them a call.
My grafting on to sour jujube in containers and then trying to produce roots above the graft idea failed at stage 1. Every one of my grafts on to Rogers rootstock failed (likely my fault). Some produced new sprouts or growth below the graft, so I’ll try again with those next year but that means producing roots above the graft is several years out. I’m happy to pay a little more from a tree grown on its own roots since I’m getting better at propagating from root cuttings.
Thanks,
Jack
Yeah, that is pretty much where I am. I grafted 50 rootstocks and it looks like I only have one take- Tigertooth. A decent number (maybe a third?) got a few small leaves. But several of those have crisped up. Even the ones that haven’t crisped, haven’t put on any growth. That’s why I’m happy to see a few rootstock suckers growing in my garden.
I may still get a few trees from ToA, just to save a bit of waiting time. I’ve already got 3 of the 4 varieties (I only have Li #2, not “Li”), but getting a nice big tree would give me a head start. And if they are on their own roots it could be very nice for growing more trees to gift to people (without all the grafting and waiting).
Only one of mine leafed out. I thought it was going to take, but about 2 weeks ago it shriveled up.
Bob,
I made an inquiry to TOA via their web site asking if the trees were really grown on their own rootstock. The answer appears to be “No”. Here is the response I got:
Hi there,
Thank you for your interest in Jujubes. They’ve been wildly popular for us the last few years. They are grafted on the wild jujube described. We actually collect the seed and plant it to graft on the Jujube varietal. Please reply with any further questions. Thanks again.
n
Neil B Collins
Thanks for sharing the response. At a minimum maybe that results in a tree that is a bit less likely to sucker. After all, if you are grafting to suckers, then you know that the rootstocks suckers and the ones that sucker the most are probably over-represented- if 3 different rootstocks put out 1, 2, and 7 suckers, the one that sent out 7 is responsible for 70% of the trees. At least they aren’t selecting for a propensity to sucker when they grow from seed.
Very good point!
the tallest jujube tree in las vegas, nv.
it is a Ii. In the dry southwest, vertical growth seems to slow down at about 15 feet tall.
lower fruits have been picked by passersby(there has been a recent increase of asian college students in this university). Couldn’t blame them for picking the fruits-- which used to cause a litter problem just a few years ago.
Easily 10 years of age, as this is what it looked like when the pic was posted in 2010
http://facilities.unlv.edu/landscape/plant08.html
Juju,
Is there any other jujube nearby for cross pollination?
Tony
there’s none.
unIv has a sizeabIe sprawIing campus, and have been in and around that campus for severaI years, am quite certain it is a Ioner.
Here in Dallas, my trees that get sun from 11am to sunset don’t get many fruit. The trees in full sun do much better.
From what I see, most jujube trees are self-pollination. There could be exceptions…
the variety ‘lang’ seems to be the exception.
Well, I thought I was going to get fruit on my Tigertooth trees in the field for the first time this year. Evidently they aborted the fruit. The tiny fruits it was producing in the spring are gone.
One of my successful bench grafts this winter was Admiral Wilkes on Tigertooth. It is already producing fruit in the back yard:
A few of them are starting to turn color.
thanks for sharing. Never seen this variety before. As it appears, admira wiIkes is in the same group as tigertooth/norris/siverhiII.
Bearing sIender-type juju fruits.
Well, I don’t know. They do look a lot like the tigertooth fruit that my other containerized trees produced. The tigertooth seemed a little longer and thinner to me but not much. I’m not sure whether to believe this fruit size is what I should expect when the trees mature or not.
in proportion to the size of the leaves, am assuming the largest fruits are big enough to give insight on the overall shape of the fruits when they reach maturity. Quite sure they will grow much bigger than their current sizes, but the shape seems to have been set in stone as that of the ‘elongated-types’.
the stubby, roundish, pear-shaped, or barrel-shaped types never assume the svelte outline past early stage of development.
My jujube trees are also shy bearing plants. Honey Jar fruited well last year (20-30 fruit on a 6-7 foot tall tree) and I got to try quite a number of those. So blooms well, hasn’t fruited. shantxi Li growth in 7 years has been pathetic. Sugar Cane I. It’s third year has a few fruit forming this year, for the first time. I also have one in a pot that I actually move around so that there is a close pollinator.
Interestingly enough, this potted jujube hasn’t produced a fruit in 4 years above the graft, it it sends up suckers that if left fruit for me the next year (though the fruit is very small, the suckers fruit profusely)
R4T3, from Roger Meyer, has grown weirdly and this year for the first time (in 6years) it has produced. The fruit are pointed, looking like strange finials.
I just wish I could get these trees to bulk up a bit. Even after 5-8 years for some of them they are still about the diameter of those pencils kids use in kindergarden.
Of course, being in Michigan may be affecting my success with these trees.
Scott
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Hi Chills, i hope your jujus improve in production with age.
while this may not sound much praise, i’ve got to tell you you’re actually the first person have come across who grows jujus AND successfully got them to fruit in michigan. Jujus will easily survive what cherries actually need to bear plenty fruits(lots of chilling time). seemingly though, with jujus, it could just be that the relatively long winters and short summers extend their ‘juvenile’ stage much longer.
also seems to me you’re in a relatively warm location-- in michigan terms. Do your trees actually die down close to the ground(but above graft) during winter? And simply resurrect themselves yearly by sending out new shoots during spring? Without heating during winter, that is usually what happens to my navel oranges and meyer lemons(here in vegas), which are ‘perpetual juveniles’, stem-wise. Which means my citrus haven’t effectively grown any bigger when i got them many years ago from cali. Heck they seem to be smaller than when i first received them. Only the main trunk seems to have grown thicker, because height and spread deveoped during spring and summer seem static and temporary, dying down each year when winter cold sets in… These vegas winters are mild enough for said citrus, but bad enough to prevent significant development , and seemingly, same with the jujus where you’re at…
you jujus beat my citrus though, since yours at least exhibit some tangible efforts to bear fruits.
btw, i find great value in your post about honeyjar, as your tree proved it to be the most cosmopolitan in terms of ability to fruit in continental usa. If it bears fruit in michigan, one could surmise it will manage to be fruitful in maine, minnesota, and montana, or even in the colder canadian provinces.
as for shanxi li, my specimen also exhibited aberrant development the first few years. It did not grow much the first two years, and then developed the largest deciduous fruiting branchlets have ever seen.
only now in its third year did it start assuming the typical growth patterns of jujus.
My figs have died to the ground the past two years as has my Asian persimmon (which wiped out its graft, Ichi Ke Kei Jiro) as well as my pomegranates. The jujubes, however, have proven to be quite hardy here in my Michigan microclimate. I have the leaf stems die back and fall off (which seems to be how this tree works, even in milder winters, but hardened stems have seen little dieback except in 1st year plants. My largest jujube is So (8 or so years old) and it is the one planted closest to the house( 2 feet), on the east side of my yard.
Poncirus is the closest I will come to citrus in the ground, and even that has suffered the last 2years. I wish they would bloom for me and my biggest is about 5 feet tall with 10-20% dieback of branch tips these last 2 years. I assume that explains the lack of bloom.
I am about 1/4th mile from a very larger lake which moderates my winter temps well, but also delays spring warm up (as well as evens out some of the wide temp swings we can see that time of year).