Louisiana Tropical Fruit Gardening - Experiences and Updates

I'm hoping this can be an ongoing thread where we share experiences and results of growing unconventional tropical and subtropical fruits in Louisiana. In my opinion, tropical fruits like mangos, guava, pineapple, etc. are just better and more interesting than deciduous fruits like plums and pears. But growing these things requires a bit of ingenuity and plenty of research. I would have started this hobby a long time ago if there had been a good repository of local knowledge and experience to learn from.

I do not have a huge greenhouse nor do I live in zone 10a down in Buras. I currently have the following tropical and subtropical plants under cultivation:

Key lime
Improved Coolidge feijoa
Unique feijoa
Oliver loquat
Lara Farms Honeyquat loquat
Kari starfruit
Silas Wood sapodilla
Makok sapodilla
Geffner atemoya
Emperor lychee
Muntingia calabura / Jamaican cherry
Ruby supreme guava
Mexican cream guava
Jalisco roja guava
Dwarf guava nana
Lemon cattley guava
Meyer lemon
Cara cara navel orange
Meiwa kumquat
Namwah banana
Dwarf namwah banana
Rajapuri banana
Dwarf Cavendish banana
Passiflora edulis passionfruit
Panama red passionfruit
Pickering mango
Suebelle white sapote

I have a ton of tropical ornamentals and figs too, but for now I'd like to focus on just the edible crops that are not deciduous and require some level of cold protection. I'm also including things like feijoa and loquat that are cold hardy but not common or require cold protection for the crops.

Many of these trees are new and in their first year, but I've already had good success with some of the older ones. Overall, the most important factors for me have been the following:

1) broad knowledge of container gardening (soil, fertilizer, water, root biology). Almost everything you read about soil requirements for containers is wrong. I look forward to talking about this in depth.

2) greenhouse - I am using a $200 Amazon plastic pop-up greenhouse on my back patio with lights and a space heater. On the coldest night of the year in Mandeville zone 9a, we hit 17F with 8 inches of snow. During this truly historic cold event, my cheapo greenhouse maintained a minimum temperature of 48F. Frankly, I found this to be astounding and it really made me decide to push harder on what might be possible.

3) grow room - my detached 8X20 brick walled garage storage room which is on the central HVAC has become a lighted and humidity controlled grow room for the most sensitive and juvenile plants during the coldest months of winter. This year, I needed this room for about 60 days. As of March 1st, it is now mostly empty except for very young or sensitive specimens. I could easily get by without this room but it is what allows for a truly year round growing season above 70F. Plants never really enter any dormancy period here.

4) lighting - I have some fairly decent grow lights set up that can provide enough intense light such that my trees are healthy, flushing growth, or even budding by the time we hit spring. I do not have anything nearing commercial level lighting. We are talking hundreds, not thousands of dollars.

I'll post a few pictures below in separate posts and am happy to share more upon request. Can't wait to see what some of you are experimenting with!

Great online nursuries I have used:

Everglades Farms
Lara Farms
Top Tropicals
Sow Exotic
One Green World
Etsy (research your seller)
Almost Eden (Louisiana based)
Willis Orchards
Four Winds (great for citrus)

Recommended reading:

Push the Zone - David the Good
Great practical guide to getting another zone or two from your climate. Focused on cold protection methods.

Florida's Best Fruiting Plants - Charles Boning
An excellent field guide to exotic tropical fruiting plants. Guava? Sapodilla? Barbados Cherry? Here's the guide that will tell you what you need to know about their biology, fruiting patterns, soil preferences, etc.

Palms Won't Grow Here and Other Myths - David Francko
Data focused masterpiece about what plants will actually survive in the real world, not what is listed on the back of the nursery card insert. If you live in Zone 8 or colder, this is a must read. For zone 9, this will arm you with the knowledge to turn your yard into zone 10 or even 11. Heavy focus on palms. You will understand why cold kills different plants and how to mitigate or avoid it.

Need proof of concept? Check out this amazing video by Theme Linh of Beaumont, TX (zone 9a). This woman has done all the hard work for you to figure out what can and cannot live in Zone 9. This video is must watch content for anyone even remotely interested in this topic:

Theme Linh's Beaumont Tropical Fruit Garden