I kinda thought that would be a more ideal time, similar to pruning a tip-bearing fruit tree. Going to try it this year, my big one has bounced back to ~15ft tall/wide after reducing it hard a couple years ago. My neighbors across the street have a hedge of it that I can see inside their fenceline - but not sure if it ever fruited, I’d just see their gardening service hedge clip it a few times per year
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Only the first real year of blooming (3-4 blooms total last year) and I notice some blooms have white petals and others red, is this common or a perhaps mutation
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On most trees, the underside of the petal is white and the part facing up is red/ pink. So depending on whether the flower is fully open, or if the petals are curled, they may appear white or red. But both colors are on the petals…
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Right but the photo shows different haha
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Not really. The top flower has its petals curled inwards, so you’re seeing the underside. Look at the edges…
The bottom has its petals open more.
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An impressive display of flowers this morning by Anatoki. Again, later flowering…But if even half of these set, I’ll be impressed…
But I can see how these new varieties would work for marginal areas. Late flowering but early ripening. But for the South, I think we will have to find the longest hanging fruit before frost. My Waingoro flowered last week so we’ll see how long the fruit take to drop.
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Nice! My Anatoki is less impressive, but looking great. I am also experimenting with mid to late varieties, but those were just planted this year so no updates.
Nikita is on its 3rd year.
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Those are great looking plants!
Question on Nikita, The descriptions say it’s large fruited, but everyone I’ve seen post say the fruit is on the small side. What’s your experience been with the fruit, both size and taste?
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Last year was its first fruiting year, and honestly it was underwhelming compared to Kakariki and Takaka. The fruits were very small and it was more sour than the other two. This could be due to age, looks like I will get a better trial this year. I will update when they ripen.
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i am in the coastal Florida panhandle. i planted 9 seedling feijoas in the ground last year and 6 more earlier this spring, scattered throughout my yard, all from local nurseries. the 4 largest/oldest bushes just flowered for me this spring, i don’t know how old they are but all 4 of them came from Just Fruits & Exotics. i hand pollinated/cross pollinated these since i have not seen any insects around these plants. i had maybe 2 dozen flowers on two bushes and just a few on the other two. Two of the bushes i planted earlier this year which are almost the size of the flowering ones also flowered (just a few) but much later this spring and i tried to hand pollinate but with all the wind and rain, i don’t know if i was successful. i think i see fruit forming on one or two bushes so far, which are the largest and oldest bushes. i have 11 feijoas in pots, one seedling (out of 5 potted seedlings) did flower and i tried to hand pollinate that. Of the 11, 6 are grafted, 5 are New Zealand varieties and another a grafted variety from the Pacific northwest. i wish i had known about the New Zealand varieties earlier as i would have bought more of them instead of seedlings but i have hope that i can push the seedlings to eventually fruit. i think my oldest seedlings are about 3 years old, not really sure just judging from the size of their trunks compared to the small grafted ones. i think i have to wait a while til the grafted ones get bigger and bushier (unfortunately they only have one trunk) to put in the ground. the seedlings i have in pots seem to grow faster than the grafted varieties and will go in the ground this year once i figure out where. Crossing my fingers and hoping i get to try the fruit this year.
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Getting the seedlings to fruit won’t be an issue, they grow and fruit very well from seed. The fruit taste and quality is what will vary. You can always graft a different variety on later if you don’t like them. I also hand pollinate, not sure how necessary it is, but I dont see any insect/pollinator activity on them either. Give the fruit some time, they can be very hard to spot early on. Last year I didn’t notice mine fruited until a couple months after.
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I listened to a podcast where a feijoa expert is still completely unsure how they get pollinated having never seen a typical “pollinator” on them. This being the first year mine have flowered a bunch I’ve been paying close attention and have not seen anything on the blooms. I don’t hand pollinate and likely won’t begin, maybe I’ll hand pollinate a cherimoya or something like that which notoriously has poor pollination, but I like to let things happen as they do. But I found that quip interesting and I’ll continue to check for pollinators on them. Maybe ants?
In some areas it seems the birds have been an effective pollinator when they eat the flower petals. Wind probably plays a large part as well. Would be nice to see some more research in that area. For now I hand pollinate hoping it helps.
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Yeah my guess is wind also
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I’ve noticed a lot of birds in my tree whenever I go by it. I think it takes time for the birds to notice the petals being edible. For me, that was like 8 years…
I know in Colombia, they’ve noticed that the rats pollinate feijoa in the urban areas…
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Maybe squirrels may start to get interested in the petals as time goes by?
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I saw a squirrel eating Feijoa petals yesterday at Duke Gardens in NC!
So it’s a real thing.
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One of my feijoas is blooming like crazy right now! Our other one has maybe 1/10 of the blooms and is a bigger tree (metal arch on the left side of pic is about 7ft tall)
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wow that’s insane how many flowers there are, you’re going to have lots of fruit