Author Topic: Ogeechee Lime seedlings blooming  (Read 2075 times)

TriangleJohn

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Ogeechee Lime seedlings blooming
« on: April 14, 2017, 09:30:05 AM »
Sometimes I get lucky, very very lucky! Two summers ago I was in Florence South Carolina at a Southern Fruit Fellowship meeting (garden club for backyard fruit growers of the south). While on one of the tours a tree I've been looking for was pointed out to me - Ogeechee Lime (Nyssa ogeche) a type of tupelo, not a citrus. I was allowed to gather fallen fruit, which I took back to Raleigh where I cleaned the seeds and sowed them. I was thrilled when TWO of the seeds actually sprouted. Here I am today with two small potted trees that are maybe 4 feet tall but appear very healthy. I was finally going to get around to planting them in the ground when I discovered that they were blooming (they're just babies!) and surprise surprise one is a male and the other is a female! The trees look alike so the only way to tell if you have both sexes is to wait until they bloom, which normally would take years. So I will be adding another native fruit to my collection - Ogeechee Lime which I guess could actually make fruit at a much younger age then I predicted. Lucky Lucky Me!





a shot of the male blossoms


a shot of the female blossoms

Triloba Tracker

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Re: Ogeechee Lime seedlings blooming
« Reply #1 on: April 24, 2017, 09:40:01 PM »
Wow, that's awesome!
What is the fruit like? I've never heard of it.  :o

TriangleJohn

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Re: Ogeechee Lime seedlings blooming
« Reply #2 on: April 27, 2017, 08:30:02 AM »
The tree I saw was past the fruiting stage and the fruit I gathered off the ground was pretty rotten so I didn't taste them. The person showing me the tree said that they are very sour and have to be watered down a lot in order to use them (he didn't like them). I've been hand pollinating them and it looks like they are fertilized so I should have fruit to taste this summer.

I've always heard that this type of tupelo only grows wild along the Ogeechee river but at another stop on that day of tours a nursery owner told me that he grows tons of them to sell as seedlings to the stream bank restoration companies throughout the state (SC) so they are now planted along many rivers and streams.

They're supposed to be hardy to zone 7 (I'm zone 7b).

Triloba Tracker

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Re: Ogeechee Lime seedlings blooming
« Reply #3 on: April 27, 2017, 04:40:23 PM »
Cool!
I didn't realize this was a "tupelo" tree, as in tupelo honey.
From what I read, it sounds like the fruit is not much to write home about, as you said. But still cool that you have them.