Turns out that cutting the trees down was the easy part. Removing the stumps was a pain in the…everything. It took quite a while and I ran out of daylight to actually plant.
I tried using a reciprocating saw, but evidently cutting roots is a good way to dull the blade (even one made for pruning) and use up the battery (3-4 times…).
They arrived today, 6 days after I ordered. That isn’t too bad, but according to the tracking, the packaged them up on Friday and they didn’t get to Fedex until Monday night. So, they spent quite a while in a box, in Texas (hopefully not in direct sun).
and yes, I should do something about the grass growing in my driveway…
The Contorted tree is pretty nice, maybe 5/8"+, while the Lang is much smaller (maybe 3/8" or a bit more- I’ll check tomorrow). I should have called before ordering to see if they would tell me what sizes the trees were, as the variety doesn’t matter that much, given my plan to graft over them. The Contorted even had 4-5 fruit on it. A couple were just approaching being ripe (1.5 months before they would be here…) and were pretty good- crisp, with ~20 brix. I’m guessing it is the same contorted as the one I have from JFaE. I removed the other fruit, as I’m more interested in the tree getting some good growth, than putting everything in 2-3 fruit.
They weren’t cheap at $69.50 each + $40 shipping, but I should at least get them well established for grafting next spring. And I’ll leave a few lower branches of the original variety, as it’s always good to have a bit more pollination.
My Tigertooth looks to be setting fruit for the first time. It was planted in October 2015, from JFaE.
While that might satisfy the curiosity as to whether the varieties are accurate, I’d suggest grafting some more productive ones on. Particularly Honey Jar and maybe So/Contorted.
It wouldn’t hurt to graft a Sugar Cane to one of the others (pollination and you can still compare the fruit from neighboring trees), as they are relatively productive and have a light, crisp texture (at least mine have).
You could check to see how many flowers they have- if the GA866 has as many or more than the others, it is probably mis-labeled. Mine has been very stingy with flower production and AFAIK has never made even a small fruitlet.
To get some more jujube trees (never a bad idea…) you can check out my thread comparing jujube vendors:
Chinese Red Date is sold out for spring 2021, so I’d suggest Grow Organic or Trees of Antiquity for nice big trees. Just Fruits and Exotics is in Florida, so they are also a good option for you, though they offer slightly smaller (but potted) trees. But if you never really have a dormant season in South Florida, then maybe a potted tree would be good.
The JFaE site says they will have jujube back in stock in October. If you want a potted one now, you should still be able to get it in a 5 gal pot from Bob Wells. But, I think they only have Lang and Contorted in stock.