The Tropical Fruit Forum

Thanks, Barath, I'll try that.

Hi Barath,

Thanks for the taste-report on the Myrcoides.
I think the Ugni species are interesting and worthwhile for my climate here in France and I am growing both Molinae and Myrcoides now. I have been trying, but I have not yet found a way to get the Ka Pow variety from the UK, but I'll let you know when I succeed. I have also heard of a large fruiting cultivar that grows here in Normandy and Britain, which I am trying to track down. Most nursery-websites in the UK are out of stock at the moment for the Ka Pow. I'll let you know what I can find in the coming months. Do you think there are restrictions on sending Ugni scionwood to the US?

Hi TheDom, that sounds very interesting.
I've had thes ame idea and tried a couple of times - but failed to graft small soft green wood on big fruit trees. I still have the feeling that it should be possible near the growing tip, though. These clips might just work! ... Please keep us updated on your grafts!

I thought I would start a thread with pictures of visits of remarkable gardens. I love to visit both Botanical and Ornamental gardens and thought it would be nice for all of us to share some pics of the most remarkable and inspirational ideas we've seen.

Here I'll start with a very little known garden in France on lake Geneva that has been designed as a classical medieval garden: Le Jardin des Cinq Sens in Yvoire - a classical medieval, temperate, espalier, medicinal and fruit and herb garden: http://www.jardin5sens.net/en/

What I really like is how they use the walls, hedges and espaliers to fit in a very large variety of fruits in a small space. Lots of pruning, though! 4 full time gardeners are employed to keep the 1300 species fo plants and fruits in check!

The garden is layed out in blocks that are bounded by hedges. Inside each hedge there is an espalier of apples about 1,5 meter inside of the hedge, and that works quite well...


All in all well worth a visit, even if it is just to see how they have organized the garden. It is so neat, you feel like they have vacuumed the place just before you enter!

Hi Luis, I am in the very north, in the Parque Nacional de Peneda Geres, near Arcos de Valdevez.

And Hi Marco from Huertasurbanas. Thank you so much for your recommendations! I actually follow your Youtube channel and there are many Eugenia's I would have never found out about without you posting about them. Your foodforest is also a very interesting project! I am anxious to see how that will turn out. In my experience the planting out of seedlings in the field is the most delicate procedure...
The summers in Portugal are all as dry as in the graphic - until you book two weeks of a camping-holiday over there :-) - my sister did that and then she got ten days of rain

I am for now doing exactly what you suggested: I have here in France a small collection of seedling Eugenia's: Pitangatuba, Grumixama, Cherry of the Rio Grande, Candolleana, Pitanga and Guaviyu. I also have Jaboticaba's: The 'normal' one from Oscar, the hybrid and last year I got the Delicatula from Helton... Since I grow them all in pots in a climate that is not ideal, I seem to have a bit of a different experience than most of you. For me the M. Delicatula is by far the healthiest and easiest to grow.... It is incredibly tolerant of alkaline water, soil, small pots, sunshine, cold, dark winter conditions, etc... Most of my plants are from seeds of Oscar. I have also last year ordered a couple of batches of seeds from Helton, but they had a hard time surviving the mail to Holland - most seeds were available in my winter or summer and either got fried or frozen in the mail... But I have two Campomanesia's that survived... I think one is Xanthocarpa littorale and the other I am not sure of.
I have found several Feijoa cultivars here in France, and figs as well, but these take the winters here, as long as I keep the snow off of them.
Guavas do very well in pots, but all the ones I planted out died. I think they are too tender for my area. I have found a larger strawberry guava on the local market in Portugal and planted that one two years ago. It didn't grow much so far, but is still alive.
Pawpaw and Pecan are also in the ground there, and so far these are doing great.
The soil is very good for Eugenia's, the ground is very rocky, and drains extremely well, with not a lot of quality organic matter in it, except on the terraces - these have been filled for over a couple of hundred years with cow dung... I tried to create a pond and some swales on these, but the ground it so well-draining, that it does not really hold the water well. Still, I think it is worth a try. I know of Sepp Holzers farm, it's awesome!

Here is what my 'garden' looks like in France:





Adam, the hut is absolutely crazy! It is the reason I fell in love with the place. It is over 400 years old and not in use anymore. People never used to live in these huts, you can find them all over the higher regions in these mountains. The way societies were organized in the past was less around 'individual property' and most villages are in the lower valleys, but when they went up in the mountains to see their cattle, the trip was often long and so they built these shelters all over the higher plateaus, just to spend the night... most of them are owned by 'nobody' or the community as a whole. There are even entire villages of them... All abandoned now. I was lucky to find one on a piece of private land. It's about 3 x 4 meters on the inside. Sheperds would overnight in there, together with the smallest calves, to protect them from wolf attacks...

The inside when I bought the place...





And this is how it looks now:



You should absolutely build your own one day!


Greenman, You are welcome to come and visit once I finished work on the hut! I seperated the terrain in areas for 'drought tolerant' species like mulberry and Feijoa, and keep the spots that retain most moisture for the Eugenia's. Longan and Lychees that I planted didn't survive, I don't know wether it was the drought or cold that killed them... It sounds like you can grow a little more heat loving plants than I do.

Hi Miguel, Yes, I wondered wether you were the same Miguel from Cloudforest. I am totally in awe of your collection! Great to see you here again. Next time I am in Portugal I hope it will be possible to visit you and maybe see your plants! That would be fantastic.

Hi Treefrog, I was amazed by the diversity of seedlings in Avocado. It is a really satisfying plant to experiment with. I saved up seeds in the fridge for a year and planted out over a hundred of them. Actually a lot - almost 50% survived the first winter there, and quite a few also survived the summers. I grow them on site as rootstock for now, and I am not sure if any of the cultivars will ever make it, but a lot more trees then I expected survived. The ground is very well draining, so that is good for them. The neighbours know of one large tree in the region, but they don't know wether it fruits...
The trees in the ground are about three years old now, so next year I will see if I can start grafting them over to known varieties...

Thanks for all your replies!

Hi,

My name is Solko, I am an artist from the Netherlands, but I live in France, and I have a small garden in Portugal

I am glad to have found this forum, and am going feverishly through all the experience, knowledge and stories that are shared here. My particular interests are plant breeding and Myrtaceae. But I love anything that has to do with plants, growing and experimenting, although for me the experimenting and tasting something new for the first time is often more interesting than growing huge amounts of fruits... I intend to find and breed a Myrtaceae that can handle a climate 8 and taste good...

Here I am in my small sheperds hut in the North of Portugal:





Looking forward to share experiences.

Solko

Hi everyone, I have been looking around on this forum for quite a while now, and I think it is time to introduce myself and my projects.

I am a painter (artist) from the Netherlands, who recently moved to the Geneva area in France. A couple of years ago I bought a little terrain in the north of Portugal, a climate 9a zone - just as a hobby. There is a little ruin of a traditional sheperds hut, which I am trying to restore, and the small area around it consists of abandoned terraces, that were once used to grow corn, but are now overgrown with Eucalyptus trees. It's small and wild, but I love the place and I try to grow all plants that I like there, basically killing the most of them, because I am apparently pretty optimistic about climate conditions. Besides my optimism about what seedlings can handle, they also have to deal with the fact that I can only go there once or twice per year - so no watering in summer and no pampering in winter! And that in a Mediterranean climate....

My basic approach that worked so far is just to put everything I can find in the ground in as massive numbers as possible and see what is still there next year...  This approach seems to be working for avocado and macademia, Feijoa and tea-plants, as well as a single mango (!) while at the same time so far no Lychee, Longan, Grumichama, Black Sapote, Cherimoya, or Eugenia raised from seed has ever survived... But I don't give up easily and am now focussing on Myrtaceae that could maybe handle a 9a-climate.

I have like the most of you ordered a wide variety of seeds from around the world and lots of them from Brasil. I raise all plants from seeds in my house in France, put the little plants bare-rooted in my suitcase when I fly to Portugal, try to look as inconspicuous as possible whe I pass customs, and then drive straight from the airplane to my terrain to put them in the ground. Most of them are about 20 cm high when I do that- there is just not enough room in my suitcase  for anything larger...

Probably the best way to introduce myself is to show the place where I intend to grow my plants. Here are some pictures of my place:





My garden started as an abandoned piece of terraced land in Portugal, that was fully planted with Eucalyptus. I am now replanting it as a mixed orchard or forest garden, while I leave most of the Eucs in place to provide overhead winter protection and protection from sun in summer for most seedling Eugenia's. There is no irrigation. The only thing I did to protect the trees is to put a fence against the deer, goat and boar around the place. I do not live there myself, so I cannot plant anything that needs a lot of care, watering or pest control. I don't have to have a big harvest either, all this is more of an experiment, I just love plants. I like to find the best varieties for the place, I am also really interested in breeding and crossing experiments, for my curiosity is often greater than my need for fruit.


This is the old hut on the terrain:





And this is what the general region looks like - it is a 9a climate, with granite, rocky soil, where people grow grapes, citrus, peaches, figs and olives:







As you can see, quite warm, but with snow on the mountain tops in winter...


And Here are some of the plants I killed!


Before:



And one year later:




I'm happy to say that all the survivors are in the ground now  and doing good.
I'm looking forward to exchanging seeds, ideas and experiences with all of you on this forum!

Greetings,

Solko

Welcome Solko: nice taste ,myrtaceae are often easy to grow and very beautiful plants, I grow lots of them and almost all will do it fine in 9a climate, the hardier ones are feijoa, guaviyu, ubajay, surinam cherry, uvaia, sete capotes, cerella, red strawberry guava, araçá da serra, maybe ñangapiré negro, some jaboticabas... and I am missing others... for sure.

Thank you, Adam, Marco and Cassio for the welcome. I only have a small collection of Myrtaceae in pots right now, most of them are two years old. I will keep you informed on any observations and progress.

And thank you, Marco, for the list of potential 9a survivors. There are a couple of them i didn't know!

This forum is so incredibly interesting and the information here has probably prevented me from killing hundreds of innocent seedlings, since i now know which ones to try to grow, and which ones i will not even bother with. I am growing my myrtaceae in pots and will plant them outside in the North of Portugal when they are 2 or 3 years old. I know most of them will die, since i cannot irrigate or protect them there, but maybe the experiment will give me some survivors...

Good growing,


Solko