Author Topic: Your favorite zone 8a plants?  (Read 3603 times)

D-Grower

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Your favorite zone 8a plants?
« on: July 25, 2017, 09:43:27 AM »
Hello all! Will be moving to my new homestead in a full zone 8a environment. Wanted to hear suggestions for your favorite edibles for this zone fruits or anything edible or medicinal. Wanting to compile a list of things to procure over time to plant there. I'm into exotic stuff as well as run of the mill fruits like apples. Let me know what y'all think!

DG
Trying to grow it all!

nana7b

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Re: Your favorite zone 8a plants?
« Reply #1 on: September 01, 2017, 11:46:55 AM »
Here in north Texas which is zone 8a the following have done well for me

Pear
Jujube
Figs



Delvi83

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Re: Your favorite zone 8a plants?
« Reply #2 on: September 05, 2017, 12:27:19 PM »
Asimina triloba... :)

Luisport

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Re: Your favorite zone 8a plants?
« Reply #3 on: September 12, 2017, 05:54:39 AM »
Pawpaw i didn't taste, but i love jujube, feijoa and ara็แ yellow and red...

AndrewAZ

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Re: Your favorite zone 8a plants?
« Reply #4 on: September 12, 2017, 11:30:14 PM »
Apple, pear, peach, blackberry, pomegranate.  Blueberry, cranberry.  Winter mint.

SonnyCrockett

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Re: Your favorite zone 8a plants?
« Reply #5 on: October 13, 2017, 10:08:04 PM »
I'm in a 8a/8b border area. 

The best things I have going in my garden by far are the blackberries - PrimeArk45 variety is very vigorous, makes large fruit, and has the added bonus of a second small spread out Fall crop.  My son and I are going out a picking a few berries off one plant every morning and afternoon.  The PrimeArk Freedom variety doesn't seem to be producing a second crop, but it is thornless.

Bananas are good too with some protection.  My bananas are planted along a privacy fence.  Harvested 30 Orinoco bananas the other day.  They were good.  Dwarf Namwah and Raja Puri are flowering now, but it's probably too late in the year to ripen those fruit.

Lasr year, I had a possum purple passion fruit vine that grew from 2' or so when I planted it in the spring to about 16' wide by the fall.  Made about 80 fruit, but they didn't have enough time to ripen them all.  They were still good though.  I didn't protect it during the winter and lost it to a late frost, so I'm having to try again.  But seemed easy enough to grow and the fruits were really good.




coyote

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Re: Your favorite zone 8a plants?
« Reply #6 on: October 14, 2017, 09:46:11 AM »
Besides the stuff already mentioned...kiwis, some guavas, raspberries, persimmons, grapes, loquats, asian pears, elderberries, all stone fruit (plums, plouts, apricots, peaches, cherries) and maybe satsumas in a protected location

SonnyCrockett

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Re: Your favorite zone 8a plants?
« Reply #7 on: October 14, 2017, 12:14:56 PM »
Maybe it's just me, but my peaches and cherries are a pain.  They seem to require a lot of spraying and attention here.  They seem to be more problematic than plums, apples and pears.

Strawberries, watermelons (Charleston grey especially), and cantelopes are good easy producers here.

Most raspberries seem to struggle, but I think Heritage is supposed to do okay.  My Anne raspberries taste great, but they are still really small plants, especially compared to my monstrous blackberries.  I also have Glencoe purple raspberries struggling and not producing anything.

I have about 20 citrus plants, but they definitely need substantial protection.  A late March frost almost killed my smaller trees.  But I did get about 20 Valencia oranges last year. 

Believe it or not, my in-ground Glenn mango produced a fruit this year with protection of course.

manfromyard

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Re: Your favorite zone 8a plants?
« Reply #8 on: October 21, 2017, 01:57:20 PM »
I'm in an 8a, and you can grow probably any sub tropical or temperate crop if you pick the right varieties. I have several "hardy" citrus with little to no protection. You can try better tasting mainstream varieties, but you will have to protect them.

Figs, pineapple guavas, asian persimmons, pomegranates are easy.
If your soil is a match, add blueberries.

Blackberries will do better than raspberries in the Southeast. It just gets too hot for them as opposed to 8a in the Northwest or west coast.

If you can manage spraying and a lot of preventative maintenance, peaches, apples, cherries, plums, apricots, can be be grown.