Looking for a new fruit tree in zone 9b

[DallasYoung]

Hey there. Long time reader, first time poster. My wife and I have a couple very sunny locations in our backyard to add a fruit tree or two. We live in Volusia about a quarter mile from the Indian River Lagoon. We already have avocados, lemon, lime, bananas, and tangelo. I’m thinking along the lines of a brown turkey fig, or some cultivar of lychee or guava. What is the better tasing of the guavas? My wife loves to make jam and jelly, and the guava jam we tried was delicious. What about Lychee?

Thanks in advance and I look forward to spending a lot of time reading through old posts!

[mangomongo]

Mangos, lots of mangos.

[achetadomestica]

I would reconsider a longan instead of a lychee. They produce more consistently.
I have  2 kohalas and this is 2 years in a row they are loaded with flowers again.
My fortune eye longan was first to flower a month and a half ago and my biew kiew
and my sri champoo both have flowers too. 5 out of 5 longans meanwhile my lychee is
flushing leaves.
This year is my first year my Eugenia calycina has produced and I really
like the fruit. The tree is 3 years old and about 6' x 6' and has about 25 fruit.
It is reportedly suppose to fruit more then once a year in a greenhouse hopefully
it does the same in the ground?

[Tropheus76]

I would go lychee over longon. Not as productive but even a slight winter storm will knock a longon to its roots and a lychee wont care. Figs do well. Mangoes need protection, Key Limes will grow great, loquats will do great.

[DallasYoung]

Thanks for the replies so far! Forgot to mention we also have a couple loquats.

What mango would best be recommended for my zone?

[achetadomestica]

I would go lychee over longon. Not as productive but even a slight winter storm will knock a longon to its roots and a lychee wont care. Figs do well. Mangoes need protection, Key Limes will grow great, loquats will do great.

I never heard that longans are fragile? My yard took a beating from Hurricane Irma and none of my
longans were knocked down?

[zands]

This is the time of year my local Lowes gets lots of interesting fruit bearing plants in one gallon pots @ about $9 each. I hope yours is the same. Look for various black muscadines and LSU figs. Last year they had LSU and I bought some. Also- You can mail order Ison black which is a great Muscadine. My local Lowes also has guavas and bananas this time of year. One gallon/ $9.

Definitely look for LSU figs at Lowes.

[Tropheus76]

The cold not the wind will take out longans and knock them back to their roots. They are very sensitive to cold unlike lychee that need "chill" hours.  I am actually getting rid of one in the near future and replacing it with an avocado. It started growing, we had a quick freeze a year or two ago and its barely coming back up at the roots now.

[DSotM]

Tropheus I heard the opposite. That lychee are recommended for tropical regions like south Florida and longon fruit much more reliably, especially in areas with frost.

[Tropheus76]

Not in my experience. I have had both and have a half dead longan brought down by cold and lychees with fruitlets on them currently. Potting a longan would be ok if brought in during the coldest weather. There's a commercial grove of lychee down the road from me as well. You could grow longan as long as you protected them, but I find them less hardy than mango.

Stuff that does work aside from them: Mulberry, several different apple varieties, bananas, supposedly pomegranates(I have four who do great, except they don't fruit), all-spice, blueberry, loquats, mango(with protection), raisin tree, melon berry, Surinam cherry, Cherry of Rio Grande(with protection), Barbados cherry in a pot, ice cream bean, jujube, pecan, and persimmon.

Not all of these do extraordinarily well but they survive. 

[sunworshiper]

I'd recommend emperor lychee. Mine fruits consistently every year in 9b and is the most low care tree I have. I've found it to be slightly more cold tolerant than mango, but it will still need protection in harsh years (more than brief dip below 32).

atemoya also does great. Mine is in ground and I give dome protection on cold years - but really easy to keep small so I expect it would be easy to keep on a container.

Mangos can do great if you are willing to cold protect- they are all the same from a cold hardiness perspective.