I have been growing a cattley lemon guava for about two years now. I started it indoors fall 2022 and moved it outside spring 2023. After a bit of struggle and sunburn, it flourished and began putting on tons of leaves and buds, and successfully fruited two guava (fell and rotted before I could eat them alas).
In September, I moved it inside to a sunny window, up at a family cabin used occasionally in the winter months. The house gets chilly (50F when no one is around) but not cold; a cavendish banana and an elephant ear of some kind are also here and are doing fine.
It was fine in early and late October, when I was up here to do some housework. The last time I was here I watered it well; it’s in a breathable German clay pot with tropical plant soil (Mt Desert Island Blend).
I came up here tonight and it looks awful. Has dropped more than half its leaves, some of which are crispy and grey. The tips of the branches all look shriveled and brown, and the pea-sized guava that flowered in late summer all turned small, black, and hard. The four guava that were more well established are hanging, as are some leaves, though more fell off to the touch. The branches are looking grey or brown where they were once green.
The soil is dry to the touch and a few inches down. If I lift up the pot and feel through the drainage hole, that feels damp. The pot is chilly to the touch; it’s out of the sun.
I am not sure if my plant needs water, or if it’s root rot, or just leaves that we’re accustomed to the direct sun falling due to intense climate changes. I am suspecting it is not the former because the banana and the elephant ear haven’t been watered since then and look fine. If it’s root rot, I don’t know what I can do about it, just because I don’t have much more soil or shears up here and won’t have a lot of time, and it’s so cold outside I’m worried any outdoor surgery would shock the plant.
Any suggestions for diagnoses or treatment? Should I trim back branches? Do I just need to pray it pulls through?
I had and lost a couple of cattley guavas over the years. Theyd drop their leaves and sort of go into a tailspin and eventually croak. One factor you might consider is light. The plant is only receiving a small fraction of the sunlight it did when outside and then only during brief and infrequent sunny periods. November is typically very overcast in this corner of the world
It gets a few hours of sunlight through a window, which was enough to keep it alive last summer. I’ve fruited mangos and lemons and kumquats with this method — this decline seems different, since it’s not just leaf drop but also the small fruit turning black on the branch.
If it comes out wet…then what? You rec’d no cutback, so it’s just wait and hope?
I read some things last night that it might be worth trimming branches even if I leave the roots just to give it fewer things to manage. But I suppose the healing of that would take energy a root rotted tree wouldn’t have
My experience so far in growing them is that they really like lots of sun and lots of water. I’ve been surprised by how often I have to water them to keep them happy, and it seems they grow their absolute best in the wetter areas of Hawaii–which are pretty darn wet. So, not getting enough water for optimum health seems likely. Also, your plants look very leggy compared to mine. I had mine in direct, full-day NC sunlight all summer long, and when I moved them inside I put them directly under something like 8K lumens of lighting. They are looking very healthy and putting on some very nice flushes of growth for me indoors.
I have lots of potted subtropicals in sunny windows and some thrive more than others. It varies year to year also who does well. Mine all live outdoors until weather demands they be brought in. At that point, there are big changes in temp, water, and light regimes, all of which is stressful.
Lemons and kumquats are one thing, but if youve fruited mangos in the light from a sunny window, that’s remarkable.
Sunlight through windows varies tremendously through the seasons. In summer, little usable light makes it in due to the high angle of incidence. Much is reflected and unless you have massively tall windows, theres no way the suns rays can reach the canopy of potted plants except in early morning and late afternoon.
Inconsistent light is a doozy on potted stuff Ive found. Cool temps and low light make the plant drop leaves with remaining leaves becoming more photosensitive. When the sun does come, its at a low angle and therefore high intensity. The potted plant may have been effectively in near total shade for 2-3 weeks of overcast weather, only to be put in full direct sun. There is a slight filtering effect of the glass (double pane windows have something like 80% visible transmittance, but the low angle of incidence means that little light is reflected and it comes wayyyyy into the room for a long portion of the day. In this way, the most intense indoor sunlight is also the most erratic in it’s availability.
My one year old mango tree fruited outdoors in a brief 6b summer, held the fruit through the transition to indoors, ive harvested and eaten one and still have the other on the branch.
looks like my cattley guavas after a couple of years of growing them. I eventually gave up. They seem to resent indoor pot culture in our neck of the woods. Ive got a fairly long list of other plants that had similar issues, and a far shorter list of things that have done well. I might try cattley guava again if and when I build an attached orangerie
That’s really a stark contrast to mine. I brought my one year old seedlings inside back in November, and they’ve been putting on new growth and have even started their first flowering (which seems really precocious, one year old seedlings in quart pots flowering?). I’m not the best at hand pollination so we’ll see if any fruit actually sets.
I wonder if the difference is in the indoor environment. I keep mine directly under a lot of artificial light rather than trying to rely on winter sunlight, I water often and have fertigated them every few weeks, and I keep the relative humidity in my house between 50-60% in winter and the temperature in the low 70s.
I am pretty convinced that you are hitting the nail on it’s head. In my experience these plants survive dark winters well as long as the temperature remains above -4 C in a greenhouse or sunroom, which means they need to get good light. The fruit, though, will die off with any kind of frost in my experience.
If you bring them inside for winter, they behave a lot like citrus - they shed leaves, dry out, abort fruit, etc… in general you can keep the plant alive in winter if you bring them inside, but it is finicky. Also for flowering it seems better to keep them closer to their natural seasonal cycle of short days in winter and long days in summer, just watch the minimum temperature in winter. If they are given a consistent seasonal cycle I have found that they flower and fruit well, even in small pots.
But the practice of bringing them in in winter - in my view disturbs their natural cycle and inner clock to a point that they actually become more fragile and easier to kill then when left alone in an unheated greenhouse.
I think I unintentionally timed it really well with bringing mine in. The weather had been cooling off and the day shortening for a while while they were still outside, even getting down pretty close to frost, before I brought them inside. I’m thinking my NC October and November counted as Brazilian winter for them, so when I brought them inside it simulated spring. Hence the flowering.
Same thing happened with a small RdB fig I brought in to protect from the cold owing to its small size and immature wood. Now the darned thing has nearly doubled in size and has a bunch of figs forming…
Come to think of it, my little barbados cherry also started blooming once I brought it inside. I think those tend to fruit after the “dry season” and I had neglected to water my potted plants enough during the fall. Hmm.
12 P. c var littorum, and a handful of other plants there, mostly figs. The guavas all came in a little pot together as fresh sprouted seedlings pretty much exactly one year ago from a guy on the tropical fruit forum. I separated them and have been growing them out, mostly outside, since.
Yeah, they’re really liking it, though I think I actually need to get more lights, the plants on the edges of the table are getting leggy and I’m sure those fig cuttings would do better in near-Death Star levels of luminance than in the “bright shade” level of my current set up.
I’m revisiting my previous hesitation about going ahead and getting Psidium logipetulatum and P. robustom now seeing how well these lemon guava have done. I’m happy with the level of care needed, and have heard good things about both those others. I’m really tempted to start a breeding project crossing these Brazilian highland species to see if any of the later generations have better cold tolerance. A real zone 8b guava would be epicness itself.
But pipe dreams aside, those other ones sound really tasty, and it looks like I lucked into a good guava growing routine so far.
Mine was fine for its first 1-2 winters indoors. But I had it in a much colder environment this time, probably with wet feet, and I suspect that did this one in. Oh well…
