@Nosehair @Lukester If you two use Facebook, you should consider joining the Texas Rare Fruit Growers Group. We meet 3-4 times per year in west Houston (Spring Branch area). Meetings are free and we share fruit, plants, cuttings, seeds, etc., and fruit growing knowledge (and war stories). Next meeting is our annual scion exchange on Feb. 8 from 10 am to noon. I will be giving grafting demos and there is always a lot of free fruiting plant material.
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Thatās awesome! When do these usually ripen for you?
Iāve been tempted by them before, but Iāve been concerned about not getting enough heat or not having a long enough season up here in NC.
Mine ripen by early December here near Houston, but Iām sure we get a lot more heat units than you do. I have five Shiranui trees, all in large containers now. I also had Shiranui branches on top of a large Satsuma from a few t-buds I placed there in 2019. In fall 2020 I had over a dozen huge fruits (the size of grapefruits!) on those 6ā-long branches. The Feb. 2021 freeze wiped the branches out completely. The host Satsuma froze completely down to the mulch and is still coming back from the 1ā tall stump. Lesson learned about top-working too high to protect from freezes.
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Yeah, probably 30-50% more judging by the AHS map.
Early December is way earlier than I expected though. Iāll hold off for a while more, but I might pull the trigger eventually.
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Thanks for showing the pictures. Since this approach is very effective in protecting trees, have you thought about growing non-citrus trees, such as white sapote, lychee, longan, et al? Heard that white sapote is very good. Caldwell nursery used to list it on their website.
I do grow (or have managed to kill) many other subtropical fruits as in-ground specimens in a very iffy climate (mango, avocado, white sapote, longan, lychee, jaboticaba, ice cream bean, surinam cherry, pineapple, etc.). None of these remains large enough long enough due to so many recent hard freezes to flower. I have fruited in-ground purple passionfruit, bananas, pomegranates, and Mexican papayas (and many warm temperate fruits such as loquat, Asian persimmon, olives, etc.), but not the others above. Let me know if you want to see the full list of āsuccesses and failures.ā
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Kind of surprised winter killed your ice cream bean. I have several in ground one is about 3ft tall, we will see how this winter does. All the others die back but have survived so far; never will get fruit im sure, but they havenāt been killed. Didnāt protect them at all, but I mulch really deep, 6ā+
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My Ice Cream Bean tree was up to the gutters of our 2 story house (circa 16ā tall) in 2021 when we dropped to 9 F. It never fully recovered from being frozen down to a stump and the Dec. 2022 freeze (12 F) was the mail in its coffin.
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My longan flowered and fruited in 2020, but froze down to a stump as well. It regrows every spring since, but gets knocked back each winter.
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My Jackfruit was KOed by 2021 freeze too. The dead stump is 5ā across. I dread this coming week. Forecast low is 19F on Tuesday and keeps getting revised downward.
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Yeah similar low here forecasted. I always add 5-10 to the high and subtract the same from the low to be accurate.
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They were showing 7 F for here on Wednesday. Fortunately itās been revised up to 11 F, but Iām still anticipating some damage.
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Great effort pushing the envelope!
I grew a Brewster lychee tree in 2019, got one nice fruit in 2020. Protected well in 2021, but no fruit setting 2021 or 2022. Then lost patience and shovelled it in 2023.
Also grew a no name pineapple guava but no fruits for two years. Killed to ground level by 2021 freeze and then shovelled. These trees grow and fruit well in northen California. Many bushes in Houston area but have no seen any fruits.
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What low seems to be the āknock backā temp for the longan? I have a potted seedling I may try to get a scion for when itās large enough to graft (itās slow growing to me)
Iād imagine date palms canāt make good fruit in humid Houston. My uncle was a date farmer in the Coachella Valley back in the late 70ās and 80ās, and if we received even small amounts of unseasonable rain during summer or fall it would ruin a significant portion of the crop. Even in the super arid Coachella Valley farmers must wrap the date clusters with large sheets of paper to prevent even trace amounts of moisture from getting on the fruit. I remember one year when Indio received a series of torrential rains from a tropical storm that decimated the date harvest. Fortunately heavy rainfalls arenāt common in southeast California until after most of the fruit has been picked. Most years donāt get tropical storms, and the first of any cold Pacific storms typically donāt arrive until after Thanksgiving. Of course, there are always exceptions. It wasnāt too long ago, maybe 2023, when a rapidly weakening hurricane brought heavy rains as far north as Santa Barbara and as far east as Las Vegas.
Hereās an article about the storms in the 80ās. I was just a kid but I remember it:
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Have you ever tried Morton citrange?
You are correct, Dates never seem to ripen properly here in the Houston area. I think there is too much humidity. At one time (circa 100 years ago as I recall) they attempted to grow dates in the lower Rio Grande Valley of Deep South Texas. Freezes, not humidity, spelled the end of those attempts. I just covered the trunks of my dates the past few days with mounded compost. We dropped to 20 F a couple nights ago. No doubt will lose all my leaves on them again (4 winters of the past 5!).
I have tried Morton/Carrizo Citranges. They are perfectly winter hardy here in The Woodlands (supposedly zone 9b). In Feb. 2021 (we dropped to 9 F) they dropped all their leaves and did not bloom that year, but they did not lose any twigs to freeze damage. The fruit is not really edible, but I have survived drinking the sweetened juice.
My in-ground Lychee (grafted Brewster) cratered in 2021, no fruit prior to that. Now I only have unnamed seedlings in pots awaiting grafting some day. My in-ground Longan (grafted Kohala) also was frozen to the ground. I assumed it was a goner, and planted a pomegranate next to the stump. It then regrew at the base of my pomegranate and has come back up after every freeze since! It never makes it more that about 2-3ā high before getting knocked back to the ground by freezes. I did not protected it for our 20 F freeze a couple nights ago. Iāll go take a look at it this morning. Doubtless it was really hammered again. Feijoa (Pineapple Guava) does well here near Houston and fruits nearly ever year, except after really hard freeze winters (e.g. Feb 2021). I have never located a named variety for sale in Houston (and am too lazy to mail order any), but located one planted in a public road median here in The Woodlands that produces very large, juicy fruit (I have grafted branches from it onto one of my seedlings grown from New Zealand sourced fruit). Here is a photo of that āGroganās Millā fruit: Feijoa from The Village of Grogan's Mill, The Woodlands, TX, USA on October 29, 2023 at 10:22 AM by Scott K. Johnsgard. Almost no fruit this year due to the hard freeze last December. There would typically be thousan... Ā· iNaturalist
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