we did it. Had about 10 people show up, which was more than I expected. A great group of people. They waived our admission, which was greatly appreciated...and they gave me a bunch of labels for plants, and a sharpie marker, so i could help properly ID some of the trees, I saw plenty that had no label, and several that had the wrong name (Eugenia victoriana was not even a Eugenia). We toured the park for what seemed like a little over an hour, as I tried to show some of the lesser known fruits. It was really thrashed by Irma, I was surprised to see how many trees had been uprooted, and even more surprised to see some of them chugging right along, with half of their rootballs exposed, still flowering, and getting ready to fruit (Annona reticulata in particular, there was a big specimen by the greenhouse that had toppled, but was still going strong). The cambucas had some severe die back, i'm not sure what caused it, but they seemed to be slowly recovering, after losing about 1/3 of their size or more, probably 15 yrs of progress lost, but they will recover with proper care. The sabaras all looked just fine. The red jaboticabas looked ok, but were severely chlorotic. The Pouterias did very well, the green sapote had a nice crop holding, despite being exposed to winds of approx 90mph. The Annona mucosa trees did surprisingly well, they had been stripped totally, but had lots of flowers and some fruits holding....was also saddened to see, the Annona collection had taken a very hard hit. One of the big illamas was toppled but ok, and seemed like a few of the mature atemoyas they had were now totally gone. Amazingly, the Rosendo Perez (not sure if that name is right) atemoya, had big fruits holding on, even though it had been exposed to a hurricane, I think this was the only atemoya holding fruits. The Annona globifloras had fruits setting and flowers, but no mature fruits ( i was looking for seed). The fingersop was loaded with fruit, they tasted good to me, the group seemed to enjoy them too, it was one of the few fruits we got to sample, other than Garcinia xanthochymus (which was enjoyed by the group as well), Garcinia brasiliensis (just a few rogue fruits), Bilimbi (fruits were nasty, lots of fallen fruits), Himalayan Red mulberry (very good fruits, maybe best of the day), canistel, Myricaria vexator fruits were all nasty, and I think that's about all. After the tour, a few of us stayed to eat at the Mango Cafe (pulled pork sandwich hit the spot)....Lol, i locked my keys in the truck and had to call roadside service to a locksmith to open my door. About 6 of us went from Fruit and spice park, directly to Pine Island Nursery, where we went shopping for plants. They had some great stuff, but had sold lots of their best specimens, it was clean and neat, but you could see they really got their asses kicked by the hurricane...some whole greenhouses, and shade houses seemed to be gone entirely, or damaged horribly, needing to be totally renovated, or removed. The lady who drove us around to shop for plants had been working there for 14yrs! They have some good people working there, one of my favorite places to shop. All of the people with me that day got wholesale pricing with my nursery license, so they were thrilled to see the price difference. It was a great day, but not sure when I'll have the time and energy to do this again....I woke up at about 5am (didn't really sleep either), and got home at about 10pm...so today, I'm just sitting around the house, making sure plants and animals are happy.
