re: Louisiana Tropical Fruit Gardening - Experiences and Updates

Sweetheart and Hak-Ip are the best lychees I’ve tried. I’ve got both trees in my yard; although, the newly planted Hak-Ip has lost all its leaves already. Hoping it recovers. Fingers crossed. It’s been brutally dry here and lychees are always tricky.

Some think the Sweetheart are too intensely flavored. Those folks usually prefer Brewster or Mauritius.

Has anybody here had luck in Louisiana with dragon fruit? I keep seeing them at the home depot and am tempted to pick one up.

you have to make a stand for them.
basically you set a 4x4 in a very big pot, with a cross on the top of it, and then train the dragon fruit growth up the post then out and laying over the top cross brace, like dreadlocks LOL.

but…they are evidently pretty easy to grow so go for it. You can sprout seeds easily from a storebought fruit. And once you have one going, you can just cut a straight frond and root it in another pot

Edit: you can also just set the post and cross in the ground, and set the pot(s) on the ground around it, training each up the post. That’s probably easier

Please do this. I really want to see it.

This is the way.

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You can sprout seeds easily from a storebought fruit.

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If you are going to do this, do not use store fruit. Get yourself either seeds or a cutting of some elite cultivar. Usually the yellow ones are considered the best.

Also, on 5/24 Gary Matsuoka's weekly YouTube video will be on growing dragonfruit. Highly recommend watching.

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Edward being my favorite.

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An old school choice. Named after Edward Simmonds who also has a Avocado and a few other fruit trees wearing his namesake.

Wiltz... Just had Karen Michelle. My god it was so good. Like coconut fruit punch. My rankings so far:

Karen Michelle
Edward
Angie
Lemon meringue
Sturrock
Chino

3 more boxes to go this summer so we'll see what comes out on top.

In other news fruit flies started getting to my ruby supreme guavas. Lost 5 out of about 30 small immature fruit. Had to bag the rest up today in organza bags to protect them. Had zero problems with this last summer. No other guavas seem to be affected.

Lychee really greening up and looking happy.


Pride of barbados started blooming.

Man, I hope they throw a Karen Michelle in the box for you. It was like eating Dole fruit punch with a strong addition of coconut. Wife and I both agreed it's probably the best piece of fruit either of us have ever eaten.

The festival looks amazing but I have a boycott on all air travel until my kids are older.

Did you grow anything interesting while you were living down there?

I'm living in the first house I ever bought so this is the first time any of this has really occurred to me. Never thought long term enough to grow these kinds of labor intensive things.