Tigerlaff

We've got mangos!

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It’s funny; several trees are only blooming on one side. My Pickering, Angie and Mahachanok only have panicles on the side that gets first light.

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Same, but you would think that wouldn't be true for me as mine is potted and not getting uneven light. My Pickering has heavy bloom on one side only and is just starting to bud on the other side. We're about to get blasted with cold non-freezing weather though, so hopefully the other side of the tree gets into gear. I'll probably wheel it out of the greenhouse anytime we get above 40F to get some chill on it.

We've also got the very first emperor lychee flower panicles emerging. Long, long way to go with that. I expect them to drop but you never know....

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Yea man I’m in Geismar! Good growth over the last year. These are in Gary’s top pot mix. It’s definitely the real deal.

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Bro, you are CRUSHING it. Those look great. Gary's is the truth and the light. Gary Matsuoka changed everything I thought and did with container growing. It's all I use on anything I care about.

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You think still to small to
Hold fruit ? Or is Pickering okay to maybe hold 1-2 just so my kids believe they’re actually mango trees lol.

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You can let that Pickering do one fruit. It may stunt growth a bit in the spring but whatever you want these trees to stay smaller. Just keep an eye on it and if the tree starts to look stressed remove the fruit.

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I have a ruby guava that I need to repot into a better mix, but gonna wait until closer to spring, and prune it back

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Yes, guava is pretty much invincible as long as the roots are warm.

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Mid Winter Status / Advice

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OK, so I'm looking at 3 citrus trees (one cold hardy, one marginal, and one cold sensitive), a barbados cherry (cold sensitive), and a mystery plant that looks to me like a Camellia.

I've never grown barbados cherry but for our purposes I'm going to treat it just like the lime as a very cold sensitive citrus. The Camellia or whatever it is looks fine. If it's supposed to be a fruit tree then I have no idea what's going on.

The first thing I notice is that all of these citrus look unhealthy. They also look small and probably should not be bearing fruit at that size. Tell us the pot sizes to get an idea of how mature they are.

When you say a mix of sand/peat, what was the ratio? If it's mostly peat then it's staying wet and the roots are rotting. The soil looks wet and you should pull all those weeds and sticks/mulch out.

Peat is nice and acidic so we know you don't have a soil pH problem that is preventing nutrient uptake. What were you fertilizing with? Citrus are heavy feeding evergreens and require extra nutrients when in containers, even in winter. I would highly recommend osmocote plus for this. Follow the label directions and you will get a steady slow feed that won't burn your plant in winter.

Where are they staying during the winter? Are they getting enough light? Are you leaving them out in cold weather or bringing them inside? The cold affects potted citrus much more than in ground citrus because the roots are more exposed.

Action plan:

1) clean up the soil of weeds/mulch. If it's staying waterlogged you need to start over with more sand and perlite. Pull them out of the pots and inspect the roots. If brown and mushy with a bad smell they are rotting. You can REALLY back off of watering in the winter. They use about 10% of the water they use in the summer.

2) don't let them freeze or really be exposed to mid 30s for an extended time. This can change once they are healthy again but right now cold is making everything worse.

3) give them an application of osmocote plus.

4) If fertilizing does not fix the chlorosis (yellowing), purchase a good foliar feeding spray and use it as directed. When plants need a particular nutrient immediately, they can get it faster by absorbing it through the leaves than by root uptake. These look like they need chelated iron but get a total nutrient spray to cover all bases. I like southern ag citrus and microgenics sprays. Honestly, everyone should be foliar feeding anyway. It keeps trees looking excellent and resilient.

5) if none of this works and your trees still look bad despite having clean fast draining soil, plenty of light and warmth, fertilizer, and foliar feeding, then you need to start considering more unlikely explanations. They could be infected with HLB. If that's the case, you should just burn them to avoid it spreading to other citrus in your area. They could potentially have a fungal or insect infestation that you cannot see. I would use a systemic insecticide like imidacloprid and a systemic fungicide like Bonide Infuse. I would purchase and add beneficial mycorrhizae fungal spores to the root zone.

99% of the time it's the soil staying too wet or the plant starving for nutrients. Take some of these measures if they might apply to you and update us on how it's working. Citrus are tough and will bounce back from almost anything except root rot and HLB.

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Thanks for your help. You looking to experiment with anything new in 2026? My office has two cargo doors that were replaced with windows when it was converted to office space. I am thinking about getting a mango tree and a papaya for my office since I get plenty of sun.

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Man you are welcome. This thread is becoming exactly what I hoped it would be: a repository of tropical horticultural knowledge for the gulf south climate of zones 8-9. What works, what doesn't, etc.

The large window thing would be interesting to try. Got enough humidity inside for container growing?

I will be trying a few new things in 2026. Most is carryover from 2025. For example a lot of my young grafted trees will be starting to flower and fruit for the first time and I have overwintered 4 passionfruit vines that I want to plant out early. I will be grafting pawpaws and air layering guavas for the first time. My most absurd experiment is not even a fruit but this guy right here:



That is Cyrtostachys renda, the lipstick palm. Of all the many, many plants I own, this one is the most tropical by a good margin. It cannot tolerate temperatures below 50F or being dry even for one day. It's going to be in my grow room for almost half the year sitting in a saucer of filtered water. I'm still sort of wondering why I would voluntarily give myself such a headache of a plant... but it's also probably the most beautiful palm in the world and is going to look unbelievable on my shaded back deck near the pool during summer when the bright red crown shafts emerge.

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I need to repot my mangos. Any issues with doing this in the winter if we are having nice weather?

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Tropical trees can handle water and they can handle more cold than you think. What they don't like is being wet AND cold. They are metabolically slow in the winter and this reduces both their need for water and their immune system function.

When you repot, you will have to water it in and water a few more times after. We are about to have 6 nights of lows in the 30s and 40s. If your trees are indoors and heated, go for it. If they are going to sit outside, wait for spring. Not worth it to test a young tree by disturbing its roots and letting them get cold and wet as they try to recover.

MY MAN :bow:

Look at you?!! This is in Geismar?

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when is the best time to order a mango tree? I'm guessing it's soon. Plan on replacing my papaya tree with one.

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If you are mail ordering, wait until a good long warm spell on the forecast or spring. All the major parcel carriers and USPS sometimes route through hubs like Memphis or Atlanta or Dallas where it gets significantly colder than we do.

Also buy the largest size you can get. Melissa Pierce on the mango Facebook groups ships 7gal trees of great varieties.

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So you are buying this? Sorry for the questions. Id like to understand what you are doing. I have a nursery that sells a bunch of different soils but its pretty confusing.

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Ask away, baw. That's why we have this thread. I buy almost exclusively Gary's Top Pot soil from California. It is stupid expensive to ship it to me but it has led to wild success with container trees and ornamentals. You do not have to use Gary's, but you should ideally be striving for something like it. Gary's consists of the following:

35% peat
30% pumice
20% perlite
10% sand
5% biochar

You can buy all of these and mix it yourself. Or you can substitute things like decomposed granite instead of pumice or skip the biochar. The reason this is ideal is because it drains extremely well and it does not break down over time. Two thirds of this mix is rocks/sand. The peat breaks down very slowly and does not lead to the anoxic sludge that bark based soil eventually does. Almost anything from a nursery is going to be made out of bark creatively labeled as "recycled forest products."

For plants I don't really care about or that I will only have for one season, I do miracle gro cactus mix with a ton of additional perlite and sand added.

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Plus, all my things seem to flourish once I plant them in the ground here. I believe I have very good soil in my area.

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It's because you do have very good soil. Florida is sand and it drains very well. Roots love it. The only issue in Florida is that if you are on limestone, you are probably too alkaline for most things to thrive. That is easily fixed by adding sulfur to your soil regularly. This is mostly a problem in southeast Florida.

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All I have been doing is taking miracle grow potting soil and adding some pearlite to it and thats it. I put that in almost all of my potted plants.

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This will work for a while, but the bark in the miracle gro is eventually going to rot and start killing roots. If you do this, I would repot with totally new soil every 2 years. That's about how long mine lasted before the bottoms of the root balls were sitting in liquified bark muck. You can extend the life of bark soil by adding more minerals besides the perlite like decomposed granite or sand from home depot. Best thing you could do is switch to something where either peat moss or coco coir are the only organics in the mix.

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I have not been adding any surface mulch. I assume that is good to keep the moisture in?

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Mulch keeps moisture in, makes the root ball more uniformly moist, insulates the roots from both hot and cold temperature swings, provides nutrients as it slowly decomposes, and serves as a substrate for beneficial fungi and bacteria. Best you can possibly get is redwood mulch but that's almost impossible now. Cypress seems to be the best available to us. Always natural mulch, no dyes.

Pickering mango has achieved lift-off. I am starting to see fruit set.





Mandeville, zone 9a. Don't let 'em tell you it can't be done!