Well, it looks like I did kill my brand new red jabuticaba by forgetting to bring it inside for the freeze/early morning hours of 20’s. In the hours since posting a picture of it not looking good, it has gone from bad to worse. A picture of it a few hours ago and now. Jaboticaba in Vista CA
At the very least, as was suggested, it is losing all its leaves. I’ll keep it inside and hope it regrows. My exhausted brain has made countless gardening mistakes over the years - frantically putting undiluted eucalyptus oil on my pumpkin patch at 9pm when I discovered a hungry chipmunk had taken up residence was the by far the stupidest thing - but forgetting to bring in a tropical and outright killing it certainly takes the cake. Have to say, this is the first thing I have been responsible for killing, and it doesn’t feel good! Alas, I’ll post a picture if it comes back from the dead. All future tropicals/out of zone container plants will be staying indoors until I’m done babying fruit blossoms in the moments between life and can remember they exist!
ouch, i feel your pain. but hopefully it’s not dead yet. i have a 1 gallon pot with a bare stick of what used to be an incredibly beautiful plinia cf. spiciflora from bellamy trees. it’s not dead, it’s just deciduous, heh.
mistakes are inevitable, which is why my #1 plant rule is to hedge my bets by not putting all my eggs in one basket.
I managed to root a couple of cuttings from my cauliflora, haven’t tried to of my red (also from flying fox). But I wouldn’t be discouraged, they are fickle but tough plants. They will get discolored leaves for a variety of reasons but seem to be pretty hardy even while looking sad a few months of the year (hottest and coldest). Mine are pushing gorgeous new growth but the old leaves look sad as they tend to. I have had one for 2-3 years and the other for just a year I think, maybe 2. I got them tiny and they grow slowly so I’m not expecting them to fruit anytime soon, maybe 5-10 years if I’m lucky.
I appreciate all your insight! That’s great that yours are thriving now.
Leaves starting to fall now. I’ve been emailing with Adam at Flying Fox, and he seems adamant that it will regrow. And, than being inside is bad for it. However, he also thinks wind is bad, and with climate change we have crazy windy spring days…so…I’ll try outside tomorrow. 20mph winds today.
It appears as though my jabuticaba might be coming back from the dead. Anywhere I cut is green and scratch tests are green. I think this is microscopic new growth…I still have no expectations. We’ll see what evolves over the next few weeks.
I don’t know if I mentioned it, but I originally basically killed my potted jabuticaba. It lost every single leaf and was just a stick. After bringing it into some shade and watering it every day for a long time it now looks like this.
Resilent plants. As long as they don’t completely die, they come back.
Very encouraging! Thank you for sharing.
You can cut the thinner branches back to where you see the leaves coming out to concentrate the plant’s energy better. Alot of the thin tips will become brittle and break anyways, trimming it will just let you control it better.
Great tip, thanks
Little “jabuti” continue to grow leaves. I’m so happy it’s alive. Mostly, I’m practicing active neglect to let it do it’s thing. I have to prune out more of the ends. It’s in a tucked away location with my jungle vegetable garden in front, so now my biggest concern is remembering it in the fall. I have countless alerts in my calendar so as not to repeat the spring freeze event. I’ve change the title.
(Blue mistflower to the left and sweet potato vines to the right)
I think jabuti has chlorosis. I have chelated iron on hand. Any recommendation for the dilution ratio? We had a lot of dry weather for end of summer/fall, so I was occasionally using tap water.
It also has some tiny red dots on the leaves lower down.
From a growth standpoint, it seems to have stayed in an identical state to where it was mid summer. I don’t know if that’s normal given how badly it was traumatized in April. Hopefully, it shows new growth next year. I’ve started bringing it in some night and putting it back outside once the sun is up.
Two weeks ago, I tried to up pot it to take something off my winter/spring list, but the root bulb was not staying intact nor has filled out the container. I only ended up moving it an inch, it was obvious. I’ll try again next year.
I always do one cap per gallon for chelated iron, but I never give one plant all of that. So if you have other plants that need it, I would so them all with the same gallon. The slow growth is normal, they do not grow fast at all. My inground one looks like its the same height it was when I planted it, even though I am pretty sure it has grown. I get new leaves alot, but they never seem to increase the height or width of the plant.
OK, thank you for the advice.
Jabuti is puttering along inside. The tips and spots on leaves have gone brown. Although I see them in my prior pictures when it was outside, so who knows. I gave it some chelated iron back when I asked about it, that didn’t do it. I think it needs fertilizer, but I know they hate that. I might give it some kelp with the next watering. It gets misted a few times a day. Looking forward to getting it back outside in 2-3 months. Sorry for the crap picture
I think I’ll be getting a scarlet jabuticaba whenever Everglades gets them back in stock. A little do over since I think this was was set back years!
I’ve come to the very obvious conclusion that jabuti is sad because since coming inside, I’ve been doing exactly what I have read all over here not to do - watering it in a rush with tap water. I’ve known it was wrong; I added sulfur a month ago to bandaid the issue. For a plant I was super excited about, I certainly am daring it to live. Thankfully, it is still very much alive albeit anorexic and sad, and I’m ready to take the steps needed to help it thrive and not just get by. I played around with citric acid to figure out how to get to pH 5, gave it a nice new acidic bath and misting, and onward we go.