Most places just sell seedlings but I know there’s at least a dozen named cultivars. I have not been able to find anyone in the USA with these cultivars for sale. Does anyone know anyone selling some superior cultivars of the pineapple guava?
Thanks
Larry
I’m not sure of superior types but i would start with isons Guava Archives - Ison's Nursery & Vineyard
Never dealt with them myself buy you can try Ruby Supreme Guava Trees for Sale – FastGrowingTrees.com
Personally if it was me i would go the less expensive route to get them but make sure your getting plants not seeds that is a con game now on ebay it seems guava | eBay
Sometimes the seller has a poor rating and a good plant like this thats cheap Rare Arka Kiran Guava 1 Grafted/Layering Live Plant ( Bare-Root ) | eBay
To answer everyones question which is going to be what even are the common types? My understanding by reading not experience is there are at least 26 types 26 Different Types of Guava You May Not Know 2022
@Luisport @Richard and others can tell you better than me more about what you need to know. I only love to eat guava i dont grow them. Grew some from seed once it was very easy.
It would be easier if you stated exactly what you are looking for. Fruitwood nursery and planting justice have the Albert cultivars available, i believe OGW has new zealand cultivars. What specifically are you wanting?
I’m too old to reinvent the wheel. I want to get the best stuff available and not spin my wheels on generic seedlings of unknown merit. I have one plant I bought from Isons locally here in GA last year and it grew great for me, but it is an unknown seedling. OGW is mostly sold out.
Grateful for all the leads
Thanks much. I’ve got a seedling from Isons, not a named cultivar. Most of the others are tropical guavas which will not grow here. I need some zone 8a plants.
Feijoa doesn’t fruit well in humid climates for some reason. Seedlings of feijoa generally taste good I would just get another seedling locally as most feijoa aren’t self fertile. I have two seedling from eBay planted next to each other for 4 years. Flowered last two years profusely but not fruit. I’m north of Atlanta 7b. Atlanta zoo has nice sized shrubs not sure if they fruit.
They’re combined 6ft wide by 7 ft tall
@GeorgiaGent I wouldn’t give up on your North Georgia feijoas just yet. I’ve been getting lots of feijoa fruit off our bushes here in 7b North Carolina in the last few years. I had none the first few years when the bushes were still small, and after that there were just a handful for a few years. I have four mature bushes growing up against my house like in your picture, and I’ve harvested several gallons of fruit this year - mostly from one bush. Three are seedlings and one is Mammoth. Two of the seedlings always produce much less fruit than the other seedling and Mammoth. I pruned the three seedlings back to about half their size last fall because they were getting too tall and covering the windows, but they still produced some fruit this year even if it was much less than usual.
One time we had an unusually cold winter where temps got into the single digits several days in a row. They dropped their leaves and didn’t fruit the following year. But they handle our more typical early and late frosts better than most of my other fruiting plants. The fruit have been small or underdeveloped when we’ve had a long dry spell in the summer, and I haven’t watered them. But most years they are very productive.
Thank you for the information. Good luck to your fruiting. I will definitely buy another seedling if I am unable to obtain some thing of better quality.
@larryrolson
Fruitwood Nursery sells seedlings from the fruit of named varieties for a great price.
I’ve bought a few of these to give to friends, and they have sent me healthy little plants that grew quickly.
How is the flavor on your mammoth variety? Do you mind if I ask where you purchased it?
That’s great to hear! Over the years I’ve only heard poor reports from the southeast. I definitely was going to keep them anyway as they are very ornamental and the flower petals are very sweet. Maybe I should try hand pollination next year I don’t really see pollinators visit the flowers.
I’ve heard many people just vigorously shake the bushes to spread the pollen. In their native range, they are pollinated by birds that eat the fleshy lobes on the flowers, but I haven’t heard of any North American birds figuring that out yet.
I’ll try that, maybe even my leaf blower. This university of Florida article has some good information, and mentions the pollination problem in the southeast
I got my Mammoth from Trees of Joy, but I suspect they got it from the same supplier as One Green World (the tag on the tree looked identical to every One Green World tag I’ve seen). Mammoth tastes good - I wouldn’t say it’s significantly better than any of my seedlings, but on average the fruit are a bit larger. One of my seedlings makes fruit of a comparable size to Mammoth, but it isn’t as productive. Another seedling is just as productive but has smaller fruit. The third seedling is unproductive and has small fruit and will get replaced this spring with another seedling from Fruitwood.
I agree with you - the flowers don’t seem to attract many pollinators. I tried a little hand pollination the first year or two I had flowers, and maybe it helped a little, but I didn’t get much fruit until the bushes were older. I haven’t bothered since then and still get a crop, but the fact that there seems to be quite a bit of variation in productivity between bushes makes me think it wouldn’t hurt to try a few more seedlings if you have space and the time to wait to see if some of them do better than others like I’ve seen with mine.
one green world sells several named cultivars that are grafted
Try planting trailing rosemary nearby to attract pollinators.
One Green World in Oregon has feijoa varieties. I have Alberts Pride, Edenvale Coolidge, Moore. All of them are doing well here in Oregon. They are easy to start from seed. Edenvale Coolidge is my favorite.
One green world has been mentioned, but another one is restoring eden. I got one of mine from them. They are short now like everyone else but they have 4 of the new Zealand ones still there, and a lot of those 4.
That is a great lead. Thanks so much.
