My seedlings are midway through blooming. Apollo has started blooming while takaka has begun to open up. But surprisingly Kaiteri that I grafted last year is blooming as well. All of the other New Zealand varieties bloom later. So not sure if Kaiteri is an outlier or if being grafted onto my seedling has changed its bloom time.
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Not far from you. My Kalteri, Anatoki, and Unique are blooming now. The first two started about 10 days ago. The Takaka is soon to start. Waingaro lags quite a bit past the rest. I donât even see blossoms formed yet. I also have Coolidge but it is more in the shade than the others and hasnât ever bloomed.
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I am having a similar problem. This winter, like you said, wasnât a problem in absolute lows but rather prolonged cold in southeast VA. Additionally, we got a lot more snow than usual. On three days we had snowfall that stacked on top of the pineapple guavas. I tried to brush it away when I could and they seemed fine. However, in late winter I noticed lots of the branch tips lost leaves. As a result, I am seeing a huge reduction in flower buds compared to previous years. Strangely Nikita is unaffected with tons of flowers, and so are my younger first year trees located no more than a dozen or so feet away.
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My feijoa located in SoMD also lost their leaves at the top but have grown back out. Unlike you, I was trying to shovel more snow onto my plant to keep them warm when the temperature were below freezingâŚLOL
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The reason I did was due to the weight of the snowfall. I wasnât sure how much snow we would get during the night and the branches were being weighed down. The lows werenât a concern for me, I donât think we even broke 20. The affected trees are growing back, just with reduced flowering. They also took longer to begin their growth than usual.
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Snow here is heavy. They call it Cascade Concrete. It broke branches. I hate how snow damages evergreens.
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I havenât really seen a big reduction in flowers, but my shrubs are younger than yours. Beautiful planting, by the way.
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Lurked a bit here before I bought but thought I should share now that Iâve had plants in the ground for ~1 month. I am a relatively new gardener attempting to grow a Kaiteri and Kakariki in Piedmont NC.
When I first took them out I kept them in mostly shade (they shipped with a warning to acclimate them slowly as they were grown in greenhouse conditions) and almost immediately the new leaves started to brown and curl. The established darker leaves were unaffected. I was worried this meant that they needed to get in the ground quickly so I planted them within a couple of days and the problem persisted until just this week or so. At first I suspected leaf spot or transplant shock as they were starting to get moderately root bound, but in retrospect I think it was just a bit of sun scorch that theyâve since acclimatized to, and I probably should have started with taking them outside for shorter periods initially. I couldnât find any comparable images or documentation so thought I should post here for the record in case it spares anyone else some grief.
Theyâre not quite in full sun but they get a few direct hours in the morning and afternoon each and a bit of dappled shade between. The new leaves seem to be tolerating it well now and are gradually darkening like the mature leaves, so I hope to update with some positive results in the future!
I am in the same zone you are (8b). I have 3, and two look healthy (the third is kinda bald). Theyâve all flowered twice but I havenât found any fruit and maybe they just arenât old enough.
Good luck. I have Kaiteri, Nikita, Albertâs Pride, Albertâs Joy, and another 4 or 5 seedlings, also in the Carolinas. Only planted my first ones in ground about 18 months ago, but so far pineapple guava has proven to be one of the easiest/least fussy plants Iâve grown in terms staying happy in a pot for a while, handling transplanting, unaffected by temperatures into the upper teens, direct sun on young plants, etc. Essentially, theyâre tough and very easy plants so I would expect theyâd bounce back with a little time and possibly some very light pruning of damaged areas. I do think limiting direct sun on young plants could be helpful since our summer heat can be brutal.
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