re: Louisiana Tropical Fruit Gardening - Experiences and Updates

Is anyone interested in me posting a link to a vetted mango (fruit) shipper from South Florida? This guy has the very best mangos. They are expensive considering the freeze and low supply. $202 via Zelle for a large Fedex overnight box which has about 10-13lbs of fruit. He opened 2026 sales today. I and many others have bought numerous times and it has always been top tier. The main reason to spend this much is to get a sense of what all these different varieties are like so you can decide which tree or class of tree to grow.

But I don't want to spam his stuff here and do all the image hosting BS if $202 is too steep and there is no interest.

At a very elemental level I don’t want to support a business selling mangoes at $16lb shipped. Last year I could find locally grown mangoes for $5-6lb all day every day. I’m exceedingly aware that this year will be different; as I’ve put $3,000+ back into my own grove. I want to see Florida developed mangoes succeed and become an international phenomenon; they deserve it and I believe one day that will happen. But; it has to be somewhat approachable. We’ll never compete with $1lb Tommy’s from Mexico or Costa Rica. It needs to the $3-4lb Ceci’s and Little Gems. Blowing peoples minds the world over.

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Mina iskandar?

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Yep.

I think my Starfruit got too much water. We've had about 6" of rain over the last week. Its all droopy and sad looking.

Welp I screwed up very big again today. Was clearing branches in the over canopy around my pawpaw patch with a pole saw. One of the branches broke weird and fell on an unexpected trajectory. It knocked 90% of the new growth off of my Shenandoah graft. One leaf remains. I really really hope it recovers. Kicking myself for such carelessness.



On a brighter note, I was able to bring in one of the kentia palms that I divided last week. No signs of transplant shock (yet). This will be an indoor plant for decades to come. Have 2 more slightly smaller than this from the division.

Got in a VERY interesting new addition today. As we all know, the problem with loquats in zone 9 is that they flower in the fall/winter and temps below 28F kill flowers and fruit. I have not seen a loaded loquat tree on the Northshore (9a) in 7 years. New Orleans (9b) on the other hand had a great loquat year.

But what if there was a loquat that flowered off season? Maybe one that flowered in the spring? Well, those apparently exist. The first I learned about was a mutation of the Algerie cultivar from Spain. It is called Piera and it allegedly blooms year round. So after the winter ends, it will just flower again and set fruit. There is nowhere to get this variety in the US.

The next ones I learned about are Chinese varieties aptly named Spring Flower #1 and Spring Flower #2. These do not flower continuously like Piera, but bloom after winter and ripen in the summer. These are available in the US at very high prices from niche and often shady sellers.

Today I got a Spring Flower #2. It arrived barerooted with no leaves from a New York Chinese Etsy seller with good reviews. There are obvious live buds on the plant, but more importantly there is a very well healed and mature graft union. This tells me that it is at least a select cultivar and that someone cared for it for a good while. Paid $100 for this stick.





I have a very good sunny spot reserved for this tree, but I can't plant it out now in full sun with no leaves and bare rooted. This one went into Gary's mix and will have to flush out new growth in a pot in my climate controlled grow room before I'm willing to stick it in the ground.



If this works, it should completely change how we grow loquats in 9a. Start your loquat seedlings now for rootstock and if it is real, everyone in this thread can eventually get a scion from me to graft.

If you've got a big healthy fruit tree that's not setting fruit it's usually because it's too comfortable. I would prune that thing hard and withhold water. Lemons flower year round so you can do it now. That trunk is huge. You won't kill it.

Should I take more off the top?

Taiwan ruby seedless guava update. This is the extremely highly rated (by Asians) sweet guava that is typically consumed while crunchy.

This thing arrived on 4/3/26 looking OK but in absolute garbage compost soil. Had no choice but to totally clean the roots and repot into the good stuff. That sent the tree into major shock, which happens about 10% of the time when I do this. Guavas are extremely tough and vigorous trees so I wasn't worried. But I can now say that these oval-leaved Asian varieties are definitely less vigorous than the central and south American guavas. It dropped almost all leaves and is only now slowly pushing new buds. Part of that is that I put it straight into a 25g.

On arrival:


Today:




The point of this was to find out if these super highly rated high brix Asian guavas will become soft during ripening and eat like western hemisphere guavas. We are on the way to finding out.