(Changed the topic and desc. to gather experiences from everyone in different zones)
Guavas are not for everyone - hard seeds, thick flesh and sometimes have raw/unripe taste. At their best they are also creamy, sweet scented and delicious. You’d love it or hate it and I haven’t seen many converts. I myself, am not a big fan of the hard, crunchy varieties that are usually consumed with sauces or spices, but I do love the soft-fleshed ones. I tried researching different varieties that I might like and has a decent chance to survive our winter here in coastal California. I will document different cultivars here as I grow them, in terms of hardiness, productivity and fruit quality as I only found scant first-hand information online on growing guavas. It’d be nice if others shared their experience as well
The first one is Lemon Guava (Psidium cattleyanum var. littorale). This is probably the best bet in our area to have a hardy, productive and bushy tree with delicious fruits. The fruits have the typical, creamy, tropical white guava flavor with a hint of lemon. There is one trade-off though - small size of the fruits. With aggressive thinning, the size can be about the size of a cherry.
Starts flowering towards the end of May. The new growth at the tips have a cool orange color
The tree puts up with neglect, part-sun, standing water from spring rain as it was next to a downspout (changed now) without any problems. I do hear there are cultivars with bigger fruits, I need to hunt for some cuttings or seeds.
Next one is Malaysian Red guava (true tropical guava - Psidium Guajava), which are propagated as seedlings by La Verne nursery and found in many HD and Lowes stores around Bay Area. I bought one in Nov 2018 and planted it immediately in the ground. The plant itself is very ornamental with red foliage throughout the year and pink blossoms during the blooming season. It survived two winters so far in San Jose and starts putting on new growth in spring. The fruits appear in Oct/Nov. Although in its first season, the tree produced only around 8-10 fruits after 50% thinning. I am expecting a larger harvest in 2020 but I guess it is unlikely to produce as much as the lemon guava. The fruit does have a strong but pleasing fragrance and sweet flavor with soft seeds. Worth the spot in my yard!
The cold winter intensifies the color of the foliage. Here it is in Feb right after an early morning frost
There is a huge Vietnamese population in San Jose and they do loved to grow tropical fruits. If you see a house with Longan, Mango, Papaya, Jujube, Guava, Pomelo, Tangerine, Lime and Lemon together, Rose apple, Sugarcane for fences, Sapote, and Cherimoya, Loofah, and Calabash then they are more likely Vietnamese. That is how I noticed it in Orange County. Lol.
That is correct! My neighbors have a longan, star fruit, couple of dragon fruits and multiple guavas. The production of their trees are the reason why I stayed away from trying to grow any of the tropical fruits. They need more care and I haven’t seen many that can handily beat the fruits from the Asian grocery stores (which are likely imported, picked early and may be even frozen, so low bar).
With guavas, I was hoping I can just satisfy my appetite by having the fruits from our side of the fence, but all their trees are of the hard/crunchy/bland variety. The fruits do get ripe and sweeter after winter, but many will rot by then. So, I started a couple of my own and they are indeed better than what I find in the stores.
Planted a Red Beaumont yesterday. From the description, its a pink guava with a sour + sweet taste. No idea how it will perform here. I will find out in a year or so
Last year I bought a Peruvian guava and a Mexican cream guava, I lost the Peruvian guava over winter, I had both plants indoors but the Peruvian just didn’t make it on the other hand the cream guava is doing well, I’ll try to post pics later on.
The plants they ware too small to start producing fruits (I think) but I’m not sure when they can start producing fruits. How old a guava can start producing fruits?
Don’t have a lot of experience. The Red Malaysian started producing in a year. I bought it as a 5 gal plant. Mexican cream is a variety I heard is good. I’ll try grafting guavas next season.
I called at the nursery that you mentioned (La Verne) hoping to find the Malaysian Red guava and also the white Arabian guava at the Clausen nursery but they wouldn’t ship plants.
La Verne is a wholesale nursery. You can ask a neighborhood retail nursery to special order it from them. I heard you can do that through HomeDepot or Lowes as well, but I haven’t been successful so far
