Are there many here growing tropical trees in climates where you need to warm them at times in winter to survive?
I’m not up to buying or building a large greenhouse so things like mango are out of the question, but I’ve thought of star fruit.
It looks like star fruit fruits as a pretty small tree. I could see providing a cover that I could occasionally use and heat to get past the dozen or two freezes I get here.
Anyone growing star fruit? Can it be pruned to be kept small without affecting fruiting?
i tried carambola ie star fruit a couple of times. They seemed to not appreciate winter growing conditions and died both times. If theyndid ok, I was planning to graft them to some good varieties. i love the fruit, so it seemed like a promising endeavor. One observation i’ve made in my various attempts at growing (mostly sub-) tropicals here is that flowering and fruiting time are important considerations. A lot of those plants tend to flower in the late fall or winter just as theyre being brought in. Even of they get past the reduction in temp and light (which tend to cause stress or outright death) the fruit either doesn’t set or is of overall poor quality. Loquats were like that for me too. Other fails include various guavas (including both true and cattleyana) and annonaceous fruits (cherimoya, atemoya, etc.)
I think you’ll find too wide a range of experiences with this phrasing. I’d narrow it to “along the Gulf coast” to get better answers for your particular situation.
For example, even my heated greenhouse here in zone 8b/9a in Seattle spends many times more hours per winter in the “too cold for tropical stuff” range than an unprotected tree would experience for you in coastal Louisiana. From late October to late March, my heated greenhouse got down into the 40s – often low 40s – virtually every single night, and a few nights down to the upper 30s. The outside low was obviously lower, and there wasn’t a single (outdoor) high above 60°F from mid-October to mid-March.
So, for west coast people, it’s a lot less feasible to zone push warmth-needing stuff to the degree someone along the Gulf coast can, since we are more continuously “cool” rather than mostly warm with occasional cold spells.
To bring it back to your original question, I could never get carambola to fruit here, probably not even in my greenhouse, but I bet it could work for you if you cover it and give it some incandescent string lights during cold snaps. I don’t have personal experience zone pushing it, but I think it would be worth trying.
Aaahhhh. Yeah should do. I looked at various varieties of guava as well.
I don’t want to plant more than one tree if possible so I’m not sure which would be the best choice. I have read that the pineapple guava is very cold hardy, relatively speaking.
My ‘average’ winter sees the lowest temps in the mid 20’s, but every so often I hit the upper teens…
Besides the pineapple guava I’m not sure what other good eating varieties would work.
Sorry this is an old topic found it in search for someone growing guavas in a marginal zone @Shibumi but my Starfruit fruits well in pot, granted I’ve yet to over-winter it so I’ll update you in spring but I don’t foresee any issues. They can handle 20s and will likely defoliate in the greenhouse (I have a small 8x12) but I don’t expect it to die from temperature, I think you should be able to keep one thriving. I also think you’d be good with mango in a pot depending upon the variety of course and keeping it small but that’s up to you. My pink guava did great last year and is full of its first fruits currently, basically in your climate I’d imagine you could plant a carambola in ground given it’s a relatively protected location also like @Luisport, however they do fruit well in pots for me
Everglades farm has some good stuff if you think about checking there. I have a Kary, which I got from them I think. I’ve bought plenty on Etsy, but I’ve never purchased a grafted tree from Etsy. I don’t think I would hesitate too much depending upon the seller. Mine is still doing well, unfortunately it’s rooted out of the pot into the ground pretty strongly so I’m going to have to cut the roots back to move it to the greenhouse. Waiting for a couple fruits to ripen before I shock it like that. I’m thinking to plant it in spring and hope for a couple mild winters for it to survive haha
They don’t have the varieties you mentioned however, I’ve never seen those varieties though.
I couldn’t resist. It’s a little sad from shipping (despite only being in transit 2 days it was dry and shaken up) and dropped 5 beautiful fruit at the bottom of the box, but, still exciting! It was a gift for my daughter who loves star fruit, and she will care for it. Kary from Everglades. And, some of the fruit is ripe or nearly so- so yum!! Way better than anything we can get here. So, we have high hopes…
(Never mind the mess behind as it was the end of a long weekend excavating manufactured rock crap leftover from construction in my front yard and moving soil)
That’s about how they look normally. Very droopy looking tree, I would imagine going from south Florida to the dc area will shock it a bit from the sudden temperature change this time of year. But as long as you keep it relatively warm it likely will ripen what fruit it is holding. I’ve found the winter ripened star fruits I have had to be rather low flavor. But also it’s a young tree I have so I’m open to them improving with time. Good luck!
Call me chicken, since I don’t know when my kidneys will go awry, I avoid star fruit altogether. I grew up in the tropic. Star fruit is a small tree. They produce abundant of beautiful flowers and set a lot of fruit. They are not popular fruit but people know them.
