Subtropicals for Zone 9

@Xannder9B Scott, in the prior decade at another location in zone 9B I had an inventory of 1200 fruit trees in pots among other things. I closed the business in early 2013 and brought my favorite fruits and herbs here to zone 10B. Some are working fine and a few are struggling and/or failing to produce fruit. A couple have been removed. The Snow Queen Nectarine and Flavor Grenade Pluot are likely next.

You’re probably aware that the SoCal 9B is very different from the FL 9B? Our Jan-Apr is much cooler and of course your humidity is quite high. I’ve heard that FL growers must be careful in chosing pit fruit cultivars so I hesitate to recommend any of mine.

Gulf Rose is a good tasting plum that should do well in your area. Must plant a Gulf Beauty for pollination. Gulf rose is a much better tasting plum than Gulf Beauty. Pluots will probably have too many disease problems in Florida due to humid conditions.

nice list! i am in zone 9a, coastal FL, and just started planting fruit trees this year so i don’t know how they will fare in the winter but i did plant the more temperate fruit trees in the ground and the most of the subtropical/tropical fruits are in pots because some of them are still very young.

in ground:

  • apples (dorset, anna, ein sheimer)
  • pears (red columbus, hood, sand)
  • apricots (tropic gold)
  • nectarines (sun gold, rose princess)
  • plums (chickasaw, santa rosa, stanley)
  • persimmons (fuyus)
  • mulberry (white)
  • blueberries (premier, tifblue, pink lemonade)
  • blackberries (navajo, arapaho)
  • citrus (lemon, lime, calamansi, kumquats, limequats, clementine, finger lime)
  • pomegranates (parfianka, red angel, sirenevyi)
  • figs (hollier, brown turkey)
  • loquat (premier)
  • feijoas
  • strawberry guavas
  • acerola cherries
  • cherry of the rio grande
  • simpson stopper
  • dragonfruit (mystic)
  • sea grapes
  • prickly pear cactus (growing wild)
  • saw palmettos (also growing wild)

in pots:

  • avocados (fantastic, joey, brogdon, lula)
  • bananas (dwarf orinocos, super dwarf cavendish)
  • plantains (puerto rican dwarf)
  • tropical guavas (not sure what cultivar)
  • papayas (a dwarf and the other i don’t know the cultivar)
  • pineapples (florida special and others i don’t know the cultivars)
  • natal plums
  • passion fruit (not sure which cultivar but i think it’s purple possum)
  • citrus (key lime)
  • lemon guavas
  • purple forest guavas
  • everglades tomato
  • mango (mallika)
  • sherbet berry
  • araza
  • imbe
  • guabiju
  • pitomba
  • pitangatuba

i will update (if i remember) after this winter passes to see what happens, though i ideally want to plant all of them in the ground.

other fruits i would like to grow here:

  • white sapote
  • grumichama
  • jaboticaba
  • maqui
  • luma
  • chilean guava
  • pitanga jambo
  • black surinam cherry
  • uvaia
  • guaburiti
  • ubajay
  • babaco
  • peruvian apple cactus
  • wampee
  • kei apple
  • cedar bay cherry
  • rainforest plum
  • lingaro
  • nance
  • cherimoya
  • java plum
  • jujube
  • amla
  • cocoplum
  • hog plum
  • achacha
  • mangosteen
  • tamarind
  • starfruit
  • sapodilla
  • soursop
  • coconut
  • cocoa
    this list can go on forever, i was born in the tropics and wish i could grow all tropical fruit here but i can’t, maybe i need to move closer to the equator
5 Likes

An FYI, I’m in Gainesville and tried chilean guava (multiple cultivars) and luma and they struggled to stay alive and had lots of dieback. I think they need cooler weather, I gave up on them. My surinam cherries get infested with Caribbean fruit fly larvae. It’s not a deal breaker, you can bag them, but something to keep in mind. Temperate jujubes (Chinese jujubes) might struggle to set fruit. I get pretty poor fruit set in 9a.

1 Like

I’ve lost a good many chilean guava to heat and sun even over here in 8a. The only ones I have that are doing well are in pretty decent shade with only a few hours of direct sun.

My luma just died, but I think it was actually the roots suffocating that killed it. A lot of chilean plants have very high root respiration rates, and even a well-established tree can be killed in the space of a few hours if the soil waterlogs.

I’m going to try again next year, but with much better soil drainage for the luma, and if I get any other chilean guava varieties, they’re going in the same spot as the other ones where they’re enough shade.

1 Like

If anyone wants to try a pretty good Luma apiculata selection, my bush will need heavy pruning this fall, and I’ve had very high take rates rooting fall cuttings over the winter. I don’t know if it would do well with heat, but it loves the cool PNW.

2 Likes

I’m certainly going to give luma another chance next year. I had the pot out in full sun through July and it looked fine, even put on new growth. It died pretty suddenly and spectacularly though, and as best I can tell I killed it with a single over-watering.

This is what we planted and the result and what we like to try in the future.

Avocado - Dead and re-sprout from the ground. Try again from seeds in the pot.
Tropical Guavas - 10 years for them to be established.
Mango - Dead. Not going to try again.
Lychee - Started from seeds at this moment. Out of 5 seeds, 2 germinated.
Sugar Apple - Trying to look for the fruits and use the seeds.

1 Like

What kind have you tried so far? Just “Hass” seeds?

It’s from the grocery store. It can be a Hass or Fuerte and the bigger one is ?. I just eat them, but I don’t buy them. My girl buy them. I’m growing it for fun. Started watching Youtube and pick up the idea of growing them in a vase. Then, I transplanted them in the pot.

1 Like

I don’t know where you are in zone 9, but most likely you’ll need to grow something more hardy than grocery store seeds if you want them to survive. Some areas that are 9b might be warm enough for some Hass seedlings to survive if you protect them for a few years first. If you’re in CA, then Bacon seedlings would probably do fine as rootstocks for you to graft even hardier cultivars. But if you’re in FL or Texas then maybe something else would be better.

1 Like

i got cold hardy varieties of avocados - i got 3 Fantastics and 2 Joeys which are supposed to take temps as low as 15 F when mature, i also have 2 Brogdons (hardy to 18-22 F) and i got a Lula (hardy to mid 20s) by mistake when i meant to get a Lila (hardy to 15 F). the Fantastic and Joey avocados leaves have that anise smell when crushed which i recall David the Good saying that that’s how you can tell if an avocado is cold hardy, the Brogdons and the Lula leaves do NOT have that smell so they may not be really cold hardy. i have also read that Pancho and Brazos Belle are cold hardy to 15 F and Winter Mexican and Mexicola Grande are supposed to be hardy to 18-22 F. of course cold hardiness only applies to mature trees. i will plant my avocados in the ground when spring arrives, hoping the trunks will be more woody by then.

1 Like

ok it seems that chilean guava and luma might be better suited for more temperate climates and might not like all the rain we get in Florida, though this summer has been very dry for me in 9a (panhandle)

1 Like

probably the humidity and heat? yes, it seems from other posts that they prefer more temperate climates. i am in coastal 9a so that’s why i wanted to try it. i was told i would be better off with Thai or Indian jujube. i just got a surinam cherry tree grown from seed (Zill’s black) and am excited for when it gets fruit.

2 Likes

I’ve been trying to find any real data on hardiness of different avocado cultivars for years, and I honestly don’t think it exists for most of the cultivars that are marketed by nurseries as being cold hardy. When they say “hardy to 15°F” they just mean some one claimed at some point that it survived that temperature without completely dying, so the number gets repeated by everyone even though it’s never been tested in any proper scientific way. I think they also usually just mean the tree survives with lots of severe damage, they don’t mean that’s the temperature it can handle without serious damage.

Which is all to say, take it with a grain of salt and keep your expectations low.

1 Like

yes, i have high hopes but low expectations. i visited a nursery in north Florida and the owner said he planted a Fantastic and he said it did fine unprotected when we had a few days around Christmas when it was colder than normal, he said it got to 17 F, he is in zone 8b. i was also watching the videos of A Natural Farm nursery, FL (zone 9b) and the owner says Fantastic and Joeys can survive unprotected in zone 8. i also saw that the Millennial Gardener on Youtube was growing a Lila avocado in i think Wilmington (?), North Carolina, so I figured i can grow them here in 9a with no problem. it’s not often the temperature go down into the 20s here in winter, but yes, there is the fear of damage below freezing.

2 Likes