I got my Carmine scionwood in a trade, but I’ve seen Burnt Ridge Nursery selling it in the past. You could ask Ross where he got his.
I’ve only ever tasted Carmine, Sweet Scarlet and Hidden Springs Nursery’s unnamed goumi (which seems indistinguishable from Sweet Scarlet to me in terms of size, flavor and ripening time).
I wonder if there are any real differences between the larger fruited goumis - Carmine, Raintree select and Tillamook. It’s possible, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re all the same.
Birds and squirrels like to eat goumis off my bushes, but they always leave the Carmine until last. Maybe the smaller sized fruit is more manageable for them, or maybe they just agree with me that the small ones taste better!
How old is your goumi bush? I got 4 rooted out of 7 cuttings this Spring and not sure if they are hardy to Z5. The polar vortex this February 16 dropped the temperature to -29F.
Flying dragon fruit are golf ball sized and full of seeds. The trifoliate smell is nauseating to me. I can grow good tasting citrus here near Houston so trifoliate and trifoliate hybrids are not for me.
I’ve grown it for 9 years, and it started fruiting in year 2 and hasn’t missed a season. Very reliable fruit producer and doesn’t seem to take any damage from late frosts.
Your post of your cuttings inspired me to check mine. I stabbed a few in the ground when pruning this winter. I had to pull the weeds back, but at least one has growth like yours on the left and another like the one on the right. I think I have roots. Success! I don’t remember how many I tried.
Normally, around this time, I’d take down my cattle panel fencing, pull out the irrigation, and scalp mow the aisles with my riding mower. Hopefully I’ll remember to give these a wide berth, or I could end up murdering some future goumi bushes.
I also have on air layer on my other bush that I hope has rooted. Now that I see these can get 8+ feet tall in several years, maybe I’ll plant some out in the open with some deer protection.
Unfortunately poncirus is about as close to citrus as I can grow here in Michigan. I wish my trees were producing golf ball sized fruit.
I had a Meyer lemon and will likely get another this spring. I also have a finger lime but it is recovering from a difficult winter indoors (2019-2020)
Don’t you graft onto Flying dragon/poncirus rootstocks? Ever come across any variegated ones?
I actually wouldn’t mind getting seed from a good contorted plant…
@ncdabbler How old is that bush in your pic? Which of those varieties has the least astringency? I’m planning on getting a few this fall. Sold out quick this year.
Do goumi do well in full hot sun on the great plains once established? Drought tolerant? I had a couple goumi planted last year that were well loved by a grasshopper plague last year along with a drought and -29F this winter. They are happily regrowing from the bottom few inches.
Heat, absolutely they can take it. I liked them enough to try them here in north Texas. The first two winters they were evergreen for me but still produced. This winter they did loose their leaves, but all have come back. strangely no flowers this year.
I have always had mine on irrigation, so not too sure how drought tolerant they are.
@Robert the bush in that picture is 9 years old, but it’s been about that same size for the past 5 or 6 years, and I prune it to keep it from getting any taller or wider. It started fruiting in its second year, and it’s very reliable. The astringency is the same for all three goumi varieties I’ve grown, but once the fruit turn a dull red and start to shrivel and separate easily from the stem, the fruit aren’t really astringent any more. The trouble is that they turn shiny red a long time before they lose all the astringency, and that fools people into trying them too early.
I don’t do anything with mine and they grow/fruit like crazy. They are actually planted on a slope to prevent erosion. I heard they are supposed to fix atmospheric nitrogen which likely contributes to their success.
First time tasting Goumi fruits today. It was good with a mildly sweet berry flavor. I didn’t taste any bitter flavor. It is a keeper. Once all these bush getting bigger then I plan to graft the larger Carmine to them.
Maybe we should graft goumi to autumn olive. Let me know if you want some autumn olive cuttings. I would love to get some of your goumi cuttings. If you need a bunch of cuttings for rootstock let me know.
Sounds great and if they dont no worries i will send you a bunch of cuttings when you are ready for them. We are so close i could likely send you green cuttings in the cooler weather if you want to try those.
Message me this winter about this @clarkinks
My bushes have outproduced what the birds can eat and those birds are on them all day. They are definitely a no care plant after the first year.
