does anyone know at what temperature is it safe to put dragon fruit cacti outside. Thanks.
I donāt know what is safe necessarily, but Iāve killed all mine in my greenhouse where itās rarely below 40Ā° and never below 36Ā°F. That could just as easily be a product of too-cool high temperatures, though. Maybe 40Ā° is fine if itās warm and sunny during the day, but a few months of highs in upper 40s to mid 50s and lows in upper 30s to mid 40s was enough to kill all seven or eight that I had (both seedlings and cutting-grown).
2 Likes
My neighbor, a horticulturist who works at OSU, gave me a type of dragon fruit he calls āredā and it thrived in the greenhouse all winter when all the others died. It grew about 3 feet last summer and kept all that growth with no rust spots. I suspect our winter greenhouse conditions are virtually identical.
1 Like
I can find out a more accurate name for you if youād like. He just called it a red. And it handled temps into the mid 30ās with no dieback at all.
4 Likes
Wow thatās shocking, they seem pretty tough to me. Mine I got as tiny little cuttings in July or august and they are huge now. I think they took a frost or two before I moved them into the greenhouse. I had 38/39 as the minimum temp in there and they grew all winter, a lot of errant growth I need to cut off and sell/give away. I just havenāt felt like dragging it out and I need to prune it first to move it out. But they can take 30s pretty easy, although we havenāt had that low for over a month and likely are well beyond that.
4 Likes
Mine is outside in Houston and I only pull it in if thereās a risk of freezing. I bought mine in a hanging basket, then never got to doing anything with it. Bakery rotted, then it spent a couple of years in a plastic storage crate collecting what dirt accumulated around it. It is now in a pot and doing great, but rarely watered by me.
Dude those look awesome! I hope to combine the two I have so I can make a tower like that. Are those 3 different plants? These two that survived are the only variety that flourished for me. I had a bunch that I got from Winn and they just werenāt up to the challenge around here. I also had what a lady called a purple and a white. Those also succumbed. I think these are really good for cold, wet areas. I didnāt even use supplemental light and they stayed green and had no etiolation.
3 Likes
Yeah I have 2 American Beauty, 1 Haileyās Comet and 1 Physical Graffiti in that pot. I was shocked how quickly unrooted cuttings could grow. I fully am expecting some fruit this year; and before I got them I thought dragonfruit was going to be a bit of a fools errand. Iāve also got so many cuttings in tiny pots because I canāt toss plants out haha
2 Likes
I have the same affliction about keeping plants. Dragon fruit is a cool looking cactus, and thatās the main reason I grow it. Where I grew up we had lots of them growing all over the place and I always thought they were bland. Maybe I just havenāt had the right one. I have bought some in a grocery store to see if maybe those might be a little better. No luck. My favorite cactus fruit are from the opuntia. You could probably grow the spineless Burbank outdoors in 9a. Itās uncontrollable in Northern California. It was originally bred as cattle feed, but the fruit is outstanding. Less seeds then most prickly pears and a sweetness that Iāve never encountered in any other cactus fruit. Plus it truly is nearly completely spineless.
3 Likes
Prickly pear grows everywhere here like a weed, so I can just harvest it randomly but Iāve only tried a couple. They arenāt bad but not worth the effort of skinning them to me. Yeah dragonfruit has only been bland to me also, but Iāve never had a homegrown ripe one. Iām hoping they will change my mind
2 Likes
When I was a kid in the desert we collected prickly pear to make juice and jam. The amount of stickers I got was unreal. Iād be finding them up to a month later in some little crevice of my hand. The tiny little orange hair stickers. Those were the worst. Plus they required much sugar to be yummy. They were just bland like dragon fruit without added sweetness. So I was very excited to discover the Burbank opuntia when I moved to Northern California. Not only is it super hardy into the teens, but might be the most vigorous cactus Iāve ever grown. San Pedro comes close but still not that vigorous. And the fruit is well worth harvesting and processing. They are good out of hand no sugar required. And no thorns at all on the fruit, especially no fine hair stickers to get stuck in your lips.
3 Likes
I suspect it is the lack of warmth rather than the absolute minimum cold. I also had one that was outside for the first mild frost in fall that seemed ok after that but slowly died over the winter.
They start to turn a pale color after a few months with lows around 40 every night and highs never above the 50s, and then they eventually just turn to mush. My first winter I lost all but one seedling (just over a year old, were in my house the previous winter), and that survivor grew well the next summer, but succumbed this last winter. Three different types of cutting-grown dragonfruit also died this last winter. I didnāt see any sign of disease, their metabolism just seemed to shut down too completely to keep alive.
2 Likes
I have 2 Yellow seed grow dragon fruits from fruit from the grocery store fruit. I have this from a cutting of my seed grown cacti. It is less than a year old and is outside. We will see soon.
1 Like
I think youāre right, I think they need some decent heat to stay alive and can tolerate quite a lot as long as that need is met. Likely due to how fast and prolific they grow, they must have a lot of chlorophyll requirements.
2 Likes
I donāt recommend it, but I had a dragon fruit āaccidentallyā survive a Colorado winter outside.
3 Likes
What??? Details please???
1 Like
Yeah, I went through a phase of wanting to grow exotic stuff to my region (Iām mostly over it by now) so I had a dragon fruit cacti in a short clay planter box that I would bring inside for the winter. The dragon fruit plant was horizontal in the box as opposed to growing upwards and had multiple roots going into the soil (I think maybe this is what helped it survive? Idk). Eventually I realized I would never cultivate a single dragon fruit so I decided not to bring it in one winter and let it die.
Wellā¦the following spring I noticed that there was a portion of it that wasnāt completely dead and was actually green and putting on growth. I separated it from the dead portion and repotted the still living portion of cactus, but unfortunately i still did not have the will to grow the plant despite its unwavering will to live and eventually I executed the dragon fruit successfully by dumping out the pot in the sun.
2 Likes
That feels like a Shakespeare tragedy of a tale
2 Likes