re: Louisiana Tropical Fruit Gardening - Experiences and Updates

The main reason I didn't do Cecilove is that Alex from Tropical Acres says that some of their Cecilove trees shirk the dwarf habit. There are "big tree" genes in Cecilove that can get turned on by some unknown environmental factor making the dwarf habit not 100% stable. If it was stable I would have picked Cecilove.

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Will be picking my 15gal up in Destin in mid April

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jealous! I couldn’t find any big Pickerings online when I ordered

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Taste the different varieties

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would be nice but I need to stick to dwarfs. So I got a Pickering and no 4

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I Have 2 avocados a super Hass (had fruit last year, but took a beating with protection at 9’) and a Reed (flushing now), same protection did much better!

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where you located?

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Picked up a strawberry guava at HD yesterday planted into a pot for extreme cold weather..when do you protect those ?

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Hardy to 22F. In a pot protect below 28. Personally, I don't let anything in a pot ever feel 30s except for Louisiana natives.

Did you get the regular red or the yellow lemon strawberry guava? Mine is absolutely loaded with fruit and flowers right now. Hundreds. My small one in the ground is also taking off. Loves morning sun and damp soil.

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I don't let anything in a pot ever feel 30s except for Louisiana natives.

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I kind of wish I had color coded my pots based off of hardiness. Will it easier to make sure I didn't overlook anything.

Geffner atemoya and Emperor lychee both pushing new growth:





This is how I know winter is over:

Random Wal-Mart find of the day. A good looking Glenn from Pine Island Farms marked down to $39. Rock solid trunk and at the perfect waist height to tip off and let it start branching. They also had Alphonso, Mallika and Julie.

I don’t have any classic flavored mangos in my grove. I’ve always regretted that a bit. Glenn is legendary in Florida. There’s a very high probability that if you encounter a huge old mango tree in someone’s backyard anywhere in SoFL it’s a Glenn.

This morning I pulled an Australian Finger Lime tree out of the ground. It’s been on the struggle bus and I’m moving it to a pot as they apparently may do better in pots.

So I had a hole ready to go on some prime real estate. Found myself at Wal-Mart; which I seldom do as it’s not very close by and there it was. They rarely have anything other than citrus trees available. I’ve never seen a mango tree there.

I sized it up; had a good looking graft that’s already hardened off. Leaves look good. Walked away from it thinking I don’t need it. Finished grabbing what I needed and then immediately talked myself into going grab the tree. Felt like destiny had spoken to me. Hole ready; classic mango to add to the mix.

Good tree from a respected nursery at half price and gives me that classic profile. Will keep y’all posted on how it does.

That’s a big Ceci. I said as much on their post. I’d buy it myself and take out my own Ceci which as I said grows painfully slowly.

To me; an underripe Pickering comes across as almost a classic profile. Perhaps a bit more intensely flavored and the coconut component shows on the finish.

Ceci is an Indochinese mango. Those are characterized by having high sweetness but also an acid/tartness subcomponent. They are my personal favorite style of mango. So if given the choice I’d go Ceci.

That being said; in my experience you’ll end up with a lot more mangoes from that Pickering.