Hello all, had a quick question.
How hard are Loquat? My mom planted one from a seed she brought from Spain many years ago and we have been bringing it indoors in the winter.
This year, I been a bit lazy since its a bit heavy in a larger pot and kept it outside so far.
The leaves still are very green, and haven’t really seen many leaves fall off. I’m in Philadelphia, PA.
Is it unusual that it hasn’t gone dormant yet? or are Loquats somewhat cold-hardy and this isn’t an unusual plant at all ?
Note: its on cement against the house facing South, so its somewhat protected. But the weather is somewhat cold (temps between 24F and 55F this week).
Different varieties have different cold hardiness, like you were told they don’t go dormant, the cold can make the leaves fall, yet that will not make the loquat tree go dormant.
Thanks for the info all, good to know. We will eventually have a few < 10F temps one of these winter days so I’ll definitely bring it in soon (and maybe donate it to someone with a Greenhouse locally next year).
Having grown a bunch of loquats from seed I can say that in my zone 8a some are hardy, some not and some borderline. If you have a seedling it will be of unknown hardiness until tested.
Grew one for a spell once near Charlotte NC (z. 7b/8a)…and it lived but blooms and/or fruits got freeze damaged…only in Florida have I seem them in heavy fruit.
I am growing over 2 dozen varieties here — many multi grafted on the same tree and I see hardly any variations in cold hardiness. I am in 8B so maybe that’s the reason.
Also once trees get larger, they are much more hardy.
My two in-ground loquats are 5 years old, the lowest temperature they went through was 7.8F. That was in January 2019 and they are easily double the size now so I imagine they could survive more now.
One is blooming for 3 years in row and the closed flowers survived 18.5F during the winter but then (already half opened) late April frost killed them. This is what they look like now
My Loquat is a seedling of golden nugget. It survived 5 F.
It is flowering the first time. But the flowers won’t survive the winter assume.
But the plant is generally pretty cold hardy. But not the flowers.
I don’t have much first hand experience, only it is relatively cold hardy. But if you expect fruit frost can be an issue because it starts flowering in winter.
This spring, two of my loquat seedlings (a couple years old) lost last year’s leaves when the new ones grew in, but a third one didn’t. I assumed it was because of cold damage, but they stayed mostly green until the new growth in spring.
The two loquats I have are also behaving differently. Tanaka on own roots loses about half of the leaves once the weather starts to warm up while the unknown grafted on quince loses very little. I don’t know if it’s because of the variety or the rootstock or maybe even vigor (Tanaka on own roots is less vigorous) but the difference in leaf shedding is quite big.
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