Funnily enough, white sapote also isn’t Sapotaceae. Sometimes things aren’t just black and white, pun intended.
5 Likes
Haha good one
1 Like
Good one!!! 
@Gkight I managed to get a nice air-layered Ice Cream Bean plant. Are you growing yours in a pot and does it produce? Any tips on growing it in a pot? I’m debating trying to find a spot in the garden va keeping it in a 15gal pot (I just transplanted it into a 15gal pot from the 1 gal it came in). Thanks!
This winter has been particularly mild along the US west coast on account of El Niño. We never got that hard freeze in the north bay that we usually get two, three times between December and March. So this was definitely a good year to have started plants that are marginal for the area.
1 Like
Hi @epiphyte - Wanted to check in to see how your trees came through the winter and if the cherimoya and Atemoyas are showing signs of growth. Btw do you also do Ice Cream Bean?
I posted on the other thread but I managed to snag some good varieties from the local OC CRFG fruit sale the other day. Looking for a good spot to put the Cherimoya and the Atemoya into the ground so they can begin growing (fingers crossed) though the Atemoya looks a lot stronger than the cherimoya I snagged. Wondering if I need to find a stronger tree from somewhere.
ugh, i totally missed the oc rare fruit sale!! you didn’t get a cherry of the rio grande? i really want a 5 gallon one.
my fruit trees were fine this winter. cherimoya and atemoya are growing, as well as biriba. no growth yet on annona reticulata. i don’t plan to put an atemoya in the ground. they seem to graft easy enough onto cherimoyas.
i have 2 or 3 or 4 different ice cream bean trees. hard to tell them apart. they are nitrogen fixers so i try to plant them next to fruit trees that i want to boost.
1 Like
I had so many of them all from seed from some fruit I bought. I have about 10 left in pots and I planted a few last summer and they were only a few inches tall, so they all died to the ground basically. I’m waiting to see if any come back, two have green trunk on a scratch test. But I plan to put at least two more in the ground this year and if they thrive great if not oh well I don’t need 10 of the same thing in a pot. Nothing is taller than a foot and a half so no fruit yet
1 Like
I watched a video on a lady growing ice cream bean trees in her yard. She had one in the ground and one in either a 15 or 25g. The one in the ground looked like it was around 10ft tall, the one in the pot was maybe 2ft in the same amount of time. She also said that the in ground one was developing flower buds for the first time and the potted one wasn’t. Although I know nothing of her care routine, a basic observation would say a pot stunts there growth somewhat. Thats about all I found about growing them in pots when I was looking.
Mine (both potted and in ground) seemed to have stopped growing after rapidly grow to 6 inches from seed. I imagine they are focusing on root development at the moment.
2 Likes
I had the same experience with them growing super fast and stopping. Same with jackfruit and mamey sapote seeds. Shot up to 1ft and haven’t budged in months
1 Like
some relevant pics and info… Black/White Sapote and Canistel in SoCal - TROPICAL LOOKING PLANTS - Other Than Palms - PalmTalk
1 Like
Mine are definitely not growing rapidly, but I’m surprised they handled a mild frost a week ago (only 32.5°F, but frost formed on surfaces and damaged new fig leaves). Something has eaten a few of the sprouts (slugs? birds?), but here’s the largest one, which first sprouted about 5 weeks ago:
We had our first 75°F day of the year this week, though, and today could possibly be a second one, so maybe they’ll start growing more soon. The lows have still been in the low 40s or lower most days, though. The last couple weeks here:
1 Like
Maybe pillbugs? They are my main culprit of young tender growth
2 Likes
I’ve never seen a pillbug eating a living plant here, maybe we have a different species? Earwigs nibble a bit, but slugs decimate things. I finally realized slugs were the culprit for all of my Morus nigra grafts from last year, which had 100% tender growth devoured this spring, and still haven’t managed any new growth on any of them. I’d been assuming a rat or something! I’m hoping they have enough stored energy to grow vigorously once it warms up more.
2 Likes
I’ve only had a grasshopper eatting mine, but we don’t really have alot of slugs as far as I’m aware.
1 Like
Maybe, but it took me two years before I realized it was rolly-pollies which I loved as a kid and assumed would do no harm haha. They nibbled back one longevity spinach that was trying to regrow after winter dieback. Slugs also, but they are more obvious. Watch out for those unassuming pill bugs haha
2 Likes
I mean it’s certainly a possibility, the leaf litter under my avocados in the greenhouse is crawling with them, but I’ve only seen them eating decaying stuff. I put my new seedling trays in the shade of the trees in there, and haven’t seen any sign of pillbugs eating anything yet. Any time something is eaten, I can usually spot the slime trail left by the slug.
2 Likes
Did you do anything for the pillbugs? I think they are nibbling on my strawberries. I’ve done 2 applications of slugggo and that seems to be having a good effect on the slug population. But (obv) no effect on our good friends the rolly-pollies.
Good info thanks. I think I need to put more things into the ground, even if they are closer than I’d like. Even if that stunts things, it should be way better than a pot. I hope. Let me see what I can do.
I don’t unfortunately and they eat 97% of my strawberries also. If you find something non toxic that works please let me know
1 Like