re: Louisiana Tropical Fruit Gardening - Experiences and Updates

That guava absolutely needs to be topped. I would go further than your line. You want branching to start about 2.5-3 feet above the level of the soil. You need to build scaffolding that will hold the eventual fruit load without being too tall to harvest. That looks like the first branch point is way too high but I don't have anything for scale to be sure.

Do not stress about it. They take pruning better than any other tree I grow. It will send out new branches and leaves within a couple of weeks. Keep it in the shade while it has no leaves.

This is a good time to bring up the fact that "trees" propagated by any means other than seed probably do not have a suitable natural growth habit. That guava was made by air layering. So it thinks it's a branch attached to a bigger tree. That's why it will grow into such an unstable shape. That's also why it will fruit right now instead of having to spend years reaching sexual maturity. If you had grown it from seed (terrible idea, fruit likely won't resemble the parent), it would have the approximate structure of a crepe myrtle and would need no pruning.

Same goes for grafted trees. It's a fruiting branch living on a different rootstock. You must shape it into what you want it to be.

Will post a photo of my two tropical guavas in a minute. The more cold tolerant yellow cattley guavas have a different growth habit and are more spindly requiring staking.

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Wouldn’t ya know, this dang Meyer lemon has new growth. Noticed root stock shoots and lemon shoots yesterday. Clipped the rootstock shoots off and dug it up and put it in a container. This lemon has died back this far the last two years due to cold. It’s 3+ years old. I was expecting to see a much larger root system. Anyways, I’ll see it I can grow it out and prune to an acceptable form. Putting a loquat where this lemon was in-ground.

Meyer lemon is often on its own roots, so you should be good.

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Idk if I have the heart to do it yet, though.

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I am the same way. Don't be like me. The only thing you are delaying by not pruning is your harvest. It will bloom on the new growth, sometimes immediately.

Restarting my orchard after the last couple of winters nuked it. Half of my blackberries and blueberries survived, but all my citrus froze.

Checked my irrigation and it’s all still good. Got a couple Owari satsuma trees, a tangerine, and two fig trees. I plan to add some more citrus soon, and some pecan and persimmon trees to the pasture.

Well. I did it. Most of it, anyway. Will chop some more when it puts out more branches.

Do yall put weed barrier on the bottom of your pots to prevent soil loss through your drainage holes?

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Well. I did it. Most of it, anyway. Will chop some more when it puts out more branches.

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Good work. You won't regret it. You will have a much better tree.

Thanks! All of mine have weed barrier on the bottom! Guess I shoulda asked last summer

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Thanks! All of mine have weed barrier on the bottom! Guess I shoulda asked last summer

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They've done studies on this. Usually it's the layers of rocks at the bottom that people are putting in thinking it will improve drainage. If your soil is running out of the pot so much that you're noticeably losing soil height then you don't have enough soil structure. Needs to be fixed with pumice, chunky perlite, etc.