re: Louisiana Tropical Fruit Gardening - Experiences and Updates

Temp in St Francisville will be dropping down to 39 for an hour or two Friday morning. Im for sure pulling my mango and cattley. Wondering if I should be worried about my pink lady guava and dragon fruit. I'm thinking it should be fine since it is a pretty brief dip. Any thoughts?

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pulling my mango and cattley. Wondering if I should be worried about my pink lady guava and dragon fruit.

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No danger to any of them but cold slows down growth and may turn the tropical guava leaves a little purple/red if exposed too long. Also pull in anything with fruit or flowers on it. Cattley guava laughs at upper 30s and will show zero stress. I wouldn't bother pulling it in. If you just want to avoid stress pull in the mango and pink lady guava. Also note that weather that cold makes mangos flower, which you don't want on a small tree.

I'm going to have to put my greenhouse back up so my Pickering doesn't drop it's fruit/flowers.

Looks like my Kari starfruit is spot on for measured sweetness. This is the winter crop, so analogous to Florida's November harvest.

Decided to go with a loquat and I’m interested in learning how to graft. Here is my question - should I start with a loquat seedling and graft multiple cultivar scions to that seedling, or should I start with a grafted tree and graft additional scions to the grafted tree? I’m thinking that starting with a grafted tree might give me a head start on having better fruit, but not sure if having a trunk graft and addition branch grafts is a good idea or not. I have a few 2-3 year old red mulberry trees that I plan to experiment grafting mulberry scions to. I’ve been pruning them hard the last two years. Anyone have experience grafting mulberry to rubra trees? Any recs for buying loquat or mulberry scions or cultivar recs?

Wish I was closer. We could make some trades. That’s a little over 2 hours away though. Appreciate the offer though!

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should I start with a loquat seedling and graft multiple cultivar scions to that seedling, or should I start with a grafted tree and graft additional scions to the grafted tree? I’m thinking that starting with a grafted tree might give me a head start on having better fruit, but not sure if having a trunk graft and addition branch grafts is a good idea or not.

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Good question. First, loquats are tough trees and graft easily. You will not weaken the tree by having multiple trunk and branch grafts. And yes, you will get higher quality fruit and much sooner from grafted wood than seedling wood. I also find that grafted trees tend to grow shorter than seedling trees, which is great for fruit protection and harvesting.

Here's the catch: most loquat you find is going to be grafted onto quince rootstock, not loquat rootstock. Quince is great because it makes the tree more productive and dwarfs the tree considerably. But the quince trees have a shorter lifespan (decades) while seedling trees will live a hundred years. For backyard growing purposes, I highly recommend the benefits of quince rootstock for loquat. The seedling trees get too tall anyway and temperatures below 27F-28F will kill the fruit and flowers. You aren't going to be able to cover/protect the fruit on a 30 foot tall tree and we get that cold every single winter in 9a.

Check out GalaPlants on Etsy. He has a lot of multi-variety grafted loquats. His stuff is expensive but always very high quality.

The depot had a couple satsumas in the scratch and dent pile so I grabbed them. When we moved here there were two ancient trees that every year were loaded with fruit.

I killed one of them with a dirty sprayer and then these past few winters killed the other one.

RIP friend you had a good run



one door closes, two doors open

“bumper” and “orange frost”.
I guess they were the last two before they get more who knows. None of their citrus looked all that great to be honest, one of these is pretty sickly so we will see.

next time I go I might bring a pair of clippers and see if I can graft on a grapefruit to one of my trifoliate seedlings

I’m pretty sure the old trees were owari and about every third year the fruit would be tough and dry. I looked both of these up while I was in the store and read similar to what you said about the orange frost.

mama will be happy that’s a plus

pawpaws arrive tomorrow I’ve been watching the spot I’m going to use and it gets about 1/2 sun 1/2 shade. I ordered a load of mason sand to spread over the bed to help. Fingers crossed

do I need to protect that guava?