I went with the kids to woodland park zoo in seattle and saw this beauty right on the south edge of the penguin exhibit. I’m 99% sure it’s feijoa, but hesitated 1% because it was so big. Am I seeing things or is this a whopper. It did not seem to have flowers but sure looked right at the foliage.
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That appears to be a feijoa alright. Its in shade so it will likely never fruit. But a nice sized one regardless!
The bush in the center of the picture is feijoa. Lots of similar foliage in the background and a manzanita in the foreground. I would expect many well-sited feijoa bushes would get this big by year 10.
Has anyone tried the Ramsey variety of Feijoa in the PNW? It is one of the few relatively early varieties that I’ve been able to find in a nursery that is close to home. Is Ramsey a good variety to grow in our temperate climate?
Would growing a few trees from seed be worthwhile if I purchased some seed online? Has anyone grown Feijoa from seed and found the fruit decent. Either way, I could graft onto the Seedlings if I can source some scion wood of better varieties later when I find some.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
No idea about Ramsey Feijoa.
I strongly recommend growing Feijoa from seed. They will produce flowers relatively soon. Many of my 4 year seedlings are producing flowers this year.
They also come somewhat true from seed and are even constantly improving. They will likely be better than many commercial varieties if the parents are high quality.
Feijoa grafting is something I haven’t understood at all. My January grafts all took but grafts done in summer have had mixed results.
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My late winter grafts have done best so far, more like March. I’ve had mixed results in summer and only failure in fall.
I assume I should be watering my feijoas more heavily than usual while flowering until I know if fruit has set? This is my first time getting flowers so I’m not sure of best practices. I’ve been picking the lobes off when I hand pollinate, I really do think the flowers alone are good enough reason to grow them. Quite tasty.
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The flowers are really tasty. I let them get wrinkly and that’s when they taste the best.
They are a wonderful architectural plant with beautiful and tasty flowers and fruit as extras.
Feijoa need to be very heavily watered. They are also very fast growers when given a lot of fertilizer and water. Mark Albert recommended plain lawn fertilizer. I use urea 46-0-0 and lots of leaf mold.
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During hot spring or normal summer, I put a sprinkler under my large bush every 2 or 3 weeks and run it for a couple of hours. The standing water is gone in ten minutes.
I still have some fresh blooms open on the large bush; it is getting late in the season for this.
4 1/2 months from now (a bloom-to-ripe time span once mentioned (by CRFG?)) is 1 December, still reasonable if weather cooperates.
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It’s so fascinating to go back to the beginning of this thread to see when the blooms were last year. This year they are almost done blooming while they were just starting to get to peak bloom about now. My trees were also so tiny then!
I have blooms now on multiple seedling varieties— all from Mark Albert named variety parents. I guess if I like them, I get to name them.
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The bloom timeframe that accompanies tree maturity is good to know. Petals are falling off my single Kakariki bloom from a tree planted last year. From reading others’ reports of time to maturity
I figured there was no way for mine to ripen here! Even in a relatively warm winter, November always seems to usher in a weird drop in temps.
Will have to compare this year’s bloom time with next year’s - maybe there’s hope.
I think you may be surprised.
There is a guy on YouTube posting from SE England who gets very decent crops from his in-ground Feijoa.
We are south of him and have hotter summers. Maybe cooler winters.
I think CRFG is conservative with respect to fruiting time. Early varieties are ready in 3.5 to 4 months in my experience. They keep swelling but slower even in cooling weather. But my later fruits were sweeter than early ones surprisingly.
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I have read in a few places that deer do not like to eat Feijoa trees. Is this wishful thinking, or do deer really steer clear of these trees?
I know rabbits don’t touch them.
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Over the winter deer selectively picked off leaves on mine. Probably, as the only green winter leaves available, deer took a chance. I now have it fenced.
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Not such a big deal if they only gnaw on some leaves, as long as they’re not ripping off entire branches as they are want to do with other fruit trees. Thanks for the info.
Ramsey is listed as late ripening in all the New Zealand literature I have ever found btw…
Ramsey
Harvest
Mid-Late
Month
May-June
Size
Large
Flesh
Smooth non gritty
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Well I guess I’ll have to keep looking. These trees are not common in Canada, so there’s only a few places locally that sell them. Thanks for that info @manfromyard.
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Tbg9b, have you checked Phoenix Perennials in Richmond. They offered a large number of feijoa cultivars, including some from New Zealand, this spring. They are listed in their plant encyclopedia under the genus Feijoa.
Yes, it was Phoenix that I contacted. Ramsey was the only so called early variety they had in stock. Apparently it’s not such an early variety after all. I tried to stop by Fruits & More in Sidney on Vancouver Island as they carry Feijoa, but they were closed the day I was over there.