dpps: below +15F outside will negatively affect next year’s bloom.
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I keep them in-ground, I don’t like growing fruits in pots. There is no way feijoas can survive in zone 7A and most likely B too. They might survive a winter or two but sooner or later there will be frost that will either kill the plant or cause serious diebacks. My 3 year old feijoas died in 2017. Now I am giving it another attempt but will cover them once temperature hits 15 and lower. The plants are still young, I had first bloom this year but removed them so I will see in the upcoming years, I have 5 early varieties
Not necessary to remove all blooms from young feijoa plants. Let a few mature to see what quality of fruit the bush produces.
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Yesterday I inspected the Mammoth bush that I did those summer grafts to.
The chip bud failed, it never calloused. The bark and whip and tongue are still wrapped with buddy tape. They didn’t push last year. If they don’t push, I’ll unwrap and inspect them.
I wasn’t able to get my phone cam to focus yesterday when I hastily tried to take some pictures, but the T-bud from the first picture looks great. Now the question is, do I decapitate the top or give the graft above it a chance first. Still plenty of time for that.
I don’t want to notch or girdle at this point.
Very impressed with your success mate! I tried a few cleft this year for the first time (in November, Australia) and got 3 out of 10… I’ll try something else next time… up to when(what time of the year? zone 9b) is it worth trying ?
Just got a bunch of cuttings from @LarryGene’s feijoa and was able to do 3 cleft grafts before the baby got fussy about being ignored in the stroller. I’ll probably do about 3 or 4 more this afternoon, but after that I still should have plenty of extras if anyone around Seattle wants scionwood!
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Looks like, of the 4 grafts, the chip bud and whip and tongue failed. The bark graft is still wrapped, and darned it the T bud doesn’t look happy. Looks like it slid, either during wrapping or from heave:
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hi, I think that if you want this bud to come out of dormancy you should cut the main branch above it.
Yes, I’m waiting until the feijoa start growing this season. I think I’ll break, and bend over the top, being careful not to break below the bud.
My bushes are just barely starting to grow after our cold spring, and it looks like this graft of @LarryGene’s tree might have succeeded (though I did have a false start on one last year):
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Feijoa here just now showing signs of life, no significant growth yet.
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Three out of four grafts I did in March of @LarryGene’s scions are starting to push now, including the one that I did with leaves intact:
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That’s a start. How many years until blossoms can be expected?
That’s a good question! I’m relatively new to feijoa, and my bush these are grafted on hasn’t flowered yet. This sounds like something @Bradybb or @murky might know the answer to.
Feijoa typically blossoms at the junction of new growth and last year’s wood.
It will bloom directly off of older wood, the record for my bush is a 4-bloom cluster on a 20+ year-old trunk just above the ground.
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I see no signs of flower buds on my non-grafted branches yet, but they are just starting to grow basically. How soon after the new growth appears do you usually see flower buds emerge? Here is the current stage of my bush other than the new grafts (these include some of last year’s grafts and some of the bush’s own branches):
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Feijoas have been unusually slow this year to wake up – owing to one of the wettest, coldest springs on record here.
There are some clear winners and losers: Nikita is the fastest growing and has put on tons of growth even in the cold weather. Anatoki is second in terms of growth.
Some of the other NZ varieties have barely even budded out. I think those would be unsuitable for our climate. Others such as Albert’s varieties are all in various stages of growth but none as vigorous as Nikita.
I have multiples of each variety – they are planted in different locations and my observations are consistent across locations.
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Good to see you back on here @ramv, I hope you are doing well!
How would you say yours compare to the photos I just posted above? Those include both my unknown/generic bush, and also the @Marta 7 and Marta 10 cultivars, which seem to be slightly ahead of my generic bush in growth (buds emerged maybe 2 weeks earlier).
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Hi @swincher, my trees are mostly similar to yours in terms of growth. This is FAR behind where they were last year. A couple of NZ varieties are even behind this.
The Nikita is the only one that is noticeably ahead of this level of growth.
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I’m not sure how long a graft will take to bloom.It could depend on locality.In areas of California,probably sooner than the PNW.
If guessing,they may be similar to other trees,two or more years?
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