Author Topic: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!  (Read 15937 times)

igrowmangos

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Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« on: July 06, 2017, 05:00:27 PM »
Hello, I am new to this group, but not new to growing mangos. However I am fairly new to growing mangos in Central Florida (Orlando Area Zone 9B). Are their any members with great success stories in mango tree growing in Zone 9B?

If so please let me know how long have you had your tree and what variety it is.

Also please let me know any failure stories if you have any. Thank You for your responses.
“When life gives you lemons, throw it back & say, “I said I wanted a MANGO!”

jegpg1

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #1 on: July 06, 2017, 06:24:51 PM »
I was surprised to see mature fruiting mango trees, jackfruit, sugar apples and avocado trees last weekend when I visited a friend there.
« Last Edit: July 06, 2017, 06:28:03 PM by jegpg1 »

igrowmangos

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #2 on: July 06, 2017, 06:49:52 PM »
I know a few who are container growing lots of tropical fruit here. Im curious to see within the group who has mango trees ground planted that surived freezing temps below 30 if any.
“When life gives you lemons, throw it back & say, “I said I wanted a MANGO!”

igrowmangos

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #3 on: July 06, 2017, 06:50:55 PM »
Were they ground planted?
“When life gives you lemons, throw it back & say, “I said I wanted a MANGO!”

jegpg1

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #4 on: July 06, 2017, 07:08:11 PM »
Yes, fruiting jackfruit may not do well in containers.
Here is a pic of one mango tree


There is another fruiting tree 20 feet away from this and it looks like a Kent variety.
« Last Edit: July 06, 2017, 07:22:36 PM by jegpg1 »

igrowmangos

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #5 on: July 06, 2017, 07:32:18 PM »
Nice to know. I had my doubts but it seems more and more likely that zone 9b is pretty darn good for mango trees. Must be the central florida humidity that makes them bounce back from freezes. At least that is my theory.
“When life gives you lemons, throw it back & say, “I said I wanted a MANGO!”

baccarat0809

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #6 on: July 06, 2017, 07:34:46 PM »
I live in Longwood, Florida, and two of my neighbors have mango trees in the ground and I've seen another 4 or 5 trees in the Longwood / Lake Mary area when I've been running around here.

One neighbor has a NDM and one has a home depot special.  The neighbors here don't really speak much English (we live on a "worldly" block with about 8 or 9 languages spoken on the street), so it's hard to verify with them the actual name.

Anyway, the NDM produced 6 fruits this year and has been in the ground for a while (I think about 3 years) and has put on some good height and branching.  The home depot special tree is about 3 feet tall now and just as wide, as the neighbor shaping the plant in the Japanese way  to keep it low but very, very wide.

The home depot special neighbor put a blanket over the tree about 5 times this last winter but nothing else and the tree looks incredibly healthy.  I'm not sure what the NDM guy did to protect the plant if he even did anything.  We had 1 night around 30 and a few nights right at the 32 degree mark this year.

On my end, I put down 10 seedlings in the beginning of June that I had been growing in pots.  2 of those seedlings were about a year old and the other 8 were around 3 to 6 months old.  I ended up loosing 3 seedlings due to transplant shock as they really weren't ready to transplant yet from the pots they were in (I think these were the 3 month old seedlings).  The 2 older seedlings are from Keitt parents and have very, very long internodes.  They're tall but show no branching and no real structure.  All of the smaller seedlings are from grocery store mango's so I have no idea of the parentage.  2 of them have a ton of leaves with very, very small internodes and the others look 'normal' for the lack of a better word.

On a bright note, I have 2 mango tree growing in my compost pile.  I opened the husks and took the seeds out before I composed some pits and other vegetable matter and to say they have taken off is an understatement.  I thought that they needed a lower nutrient environment but man they've flushed twice now and grown more than the 6 month old seedlings I transplanted into the regular ground.  I need to dig those out and move them to a better area.

In the future for any mango trees I'm planning on planting, I'm thinking I should dig a decent size pit and use that area for compost for a month or two, then put the tree on top of the compost pile.  I really can't believe the boost those 2 seedlings have.

I also started a bunch of papaya trees from seed in the beginning of May.  They're up to about 3 inches, maybe 4 inches tall now and growing well.  They were pretty stunted (and I have them in good soil), but I started using Miracle Grow on them and they've doubled in size over the last week and have around 15 dwarf cavandish banana trees growing.  I bought 1 tree from home depot that I grew in a pot for a while, split into three trees now I've got 15 trees growing.  Haven't harvested any bananas yet as I was more trying to get multiple plants growing than getting fruit.  Now that I'm up to 15 trees I'll work on growing them bigger and not separating them out.

As for containers, I have 7 mango trees growing in pots now.  I have a 25 gallon, two 7 gallon, two 3 gallon and two 1 gallon trees.  All but the 25 gallon trees are also seedlings.  One of the 7 gallon trees has flushed 3 times since May and doubled in size, but that growth started after we got all those rain days.  Rainwater has been significantly better for my trees than Longwood City water has been.

I tried growing a mamey sapote but something got at the seed after it through its first few leaves and destroyed the seed.  I also have 5 loquat trees growing from seed and a Florida Prince peach tree in pots that I got for free from Duke Energy.

I'm only renting the house I'm at now, so I don't really want to put too much in the ground.  I much prefer to keep trees in the ground, especially for watering purposes, but don't want to put too much work into the yard if we end up leaving.  I'm buying a house when my lease is up in 2 more years - the only questions is will it be this one or somewhere else.  I don't mind leaving the mango trees as they cost me just a few pennies to grow on my own.

My citrus trees have not done well.  One has been attacked by red ants constantly and no matter what I do I can't get rid of them.  I'm pretty sure its aphids on the tree but I'm ready to give up on that tree and just rip it out.  I've spent way too much money on that tree with sprays and the like and its just useless.  The other 4 citrus trees I put in the ground haven't done much.

Mugenia

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #7 on: July 07, 2017, 09:01:41 AM »
My brother's father-in-law lives in Lutz and he has all kind of tropical fruit trees like custard apple, June plum, atemoya, etc.

WGphil

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #8 on: July 07, 2017, 09:27:28 AM »
I planted my jaboticabo almost twenty years ago and moved it once and still doing well.

I was lucky with  my first two mango trees. The first was a Fairchild which is a great starter tree.

After it fruited I thought where have these been.  My next purchase was a tebow which I soon found out was really a Young. It was a good tree as well because it grew when my knowledge was lowest.

I have had rain on my leaves over night for over a month.   I am up to twenty types now and most are doing well.  The providence likes the wet the least so far but most are doing well.   

But most are one and two year old trees and fruiting may have more challenges when that time comes


Tropheus76

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #9 on: July 07, 2017, 09:57:53 AM »
I have pretty low luck with citrus and am gradually removing them when they become too much of an eyesore and I have something to replace them. Very much a case of new home owner, excited to have room for fruit trees and figuring that "Hey, its Florida!" 100+ fruit trees and 5 years later I am down to 9 citrus trees with 3 on a short list for removal.

Mangos do well here. I have 2 in pots, Mahanchok(sp?), and a Pickering, then a Cotton Candy, Graham, Sweet tart, and lemon zest in the ground. I got fruit this year of the Graham and Pickering. I had flowers on the ST and LZ, but before I realized it, like literally overnight, those damn grey and orange weevils got to them and devastated the flowers and really hurt the LZ's leaves before I got rid of them. I still find the occasional weevil on my persimmon and all spice trees. For some weird reason they ignored my graham and pickering, although a deer tore up the Graham pretty bad, it still ended up with a lone fruit. Most of my mangos have a modicum of protection being in full sunlight but under the overhanging branches of oaks or pine trees. While it might not be the best protection, they weathered the light frosts we had the past two years with no problem. My sugar apple is under the same protection and it does great.

The Cotton candy is too recently planted to gauge anything about it. It hasn't even put out its first flush yet but seems to be happy. My LZ which got messed up from the weevils is finally recovering and is hardening its first successful flush. While the weevils screwed up the flowers on my ST, they don't seem to mess with the leaves and it is starting its 3rd flush of the season and has gained about a foot and a half of height. The container trees aren't near as vigorous. The graham is still recovering from the deer attack and is growing oddly, I might have to do some bonsai work to make it look like a normal tree again.

I am east of Orlando just past Bithlo. Listening to Adam talk about his weather over at his nursery, we get completely different weather from the northern Orlando area. Not surprising though since our rainfall record is completely different as well. for example, I had to go water my container and newly planted stuff yesterday and if we don't get any rain this afternoon I am going to have to go run the irrigation system. Havent had rain since Saturday.

C24mccain

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #10 on: July 07, 2017, 02:44:42 PM »
I'm in Lakeland and have seen a fair amount of mango trees around. We started a project in february of 2016 so our mangos have only been through one winter and we didn't hit 32 this last winter. We have lots of other fruit trees as well. Here is a link to my project thread: http://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=22838.0   We should have an update video sometime in the next 30 days hopefully.

shinzo

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #11 on: July 08, 2017, 01:36:39 AM »
I live in Longwood, Florida, and two of my neighbors have mango trees in the ground and I've seen another 4 or 5 trees in the Longwood / Lake Mary area when I've been running around here.

One neighbor has a NDM and one has a home depot special.  The neighbors here don't really speak much English (we live on a "worldly" block with about 8 or 9 languages spoken on the street), so it's hard to verify with them the actual name.

Anyway, the NDM produced 6 fruits this year and has been in the ground for a while (I think about 3 years) and has put on some good height and branching.  The home depot special tree is about 3 feet tall now and just as wide, as the neighbor shaping the plant in the Japanese way  to keep it low but very, very wide.

The home depot special neighbor put a blanket over the tree about 5 times this last winter but nothing else and the tree looks incredibly healthy.  I'm not sure what the NDM guy did to protect the plant if he even did anything.  We had 1 night around 30 and a few nights right at the 32 degree mark this year.

On my end, I put down 10 seedlings in the beginning of June that I had been growing in pots.  2 of those seedlings were about a year old and the other 8 were around 3 to 6 months old.  I ended up loosing 3 seedlings due to transplant shock as they really weren't ready to transplant yet from the pots they were in (I think these were the 3 month old seedlings).  The 2 older seedlings are from Keitt parents and have very, very long internodes.  They're tall but show no branching and no real structure.  All of the smaller seedlings are from grocery store mango's so I have no idea of the parentage.  2 of them have a ton of leaves with very, very small internodes and the others look 'normal' for the lack of a better word.

On a bright note, I have 2 mango tree growing in my compost pile.  I opened the husks and took the seeds out before I composed some pits and other vegetable matter and to say they have taken off is an understatement.  I thought that they needed a lower nutrient environment but man they've flushed twice now and grown more than the 6 month old seedlings I transplanted into the regular ground.  I need to dig those out and move them to a better area.

In the future for any mango trees I'm planning on planting, I'm thinking I should dig a decent size pit and use that area for compost for a month or two, then put the tree on top of the compost pile.  I really can't believe the boost those 2 seedlings have.

I also started a bunch of papaya trees from seed in the beginning of May.  They're up to about 3 inches, maybe 4 inches tall now and growing well.  They were pretty stunted (and I have them in good soil), but I started using Miracle Grow on them and they've doubled in size over the last week and have around 15 dwarf cavandish banana trees growing.  I bought 1 tree from home depot that I grew in a pot for a while, split into three trees now I've got 15 trees growing.  Haven't harvested any bananas yet as I was more trying to get multiple plants growing than getting fruit.  Now that I'm up to 15 trees I'll work on growing them bigger and not separating them out.

As for containers, I have 7 mango trees growing in pots now.  I have a 25 gallon, two 7 gallon, two 3 gallon and two 1 gallon trees.  All but the 25 gallon trees are also seedlings.  One of the 7 gallon trees has flushed 3 times since May and doubled in size, but that growth started after we got all those rain days.  Rainwater has been significantly better for my trees than Longwood City water has been.

I tried growing a mamey sapote but something got at the seed after it through its first few leaves and destroyed the seed.  I also have 5 loquat trees growing from seed and a Florida Prince peach tree in pots that I got for free from Duke Energy.

I'm only renting the house I'm at now, so I don't really want to put too much in the ground.  I much prefer to keep trees in the ground, especially for watering purposes, but don't want to put too much work into the yard if we end up leaving.  I'm buying a house when my lease is up in 2 more years - the only questions is will it be this one or somewhere else.  I don't mind leaving the mango trees as they cost me just a few pennies to grow on my own.

My citrus trees have not done well.  One has been attacked by red ants constantly and no matter what I do I can't get rid of them.  I'm pretty sure its aphids on the tree but I'm ready to give up on that tree and just rip it out.  I've spent way too much money on that tree with sprays and the like and its just useless.  The other 4 citrus trees I put in the ground haven't done much.

Do you have pictures od the seedlings in the compost pile?

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #12 on: July 08, 2017, 12:41:03 PM »


My citrus trees have not done well.  One has been attacked by red ants constantly and no matter what I do I can't get rid of them.  I'm pretty sure its aphids on the tree but I'm ready to give up on that tree and just rip it out.  I've spent way too much money on that tree with sprays and the like and its just useless.  The other 4 citrus trees I put in the ground haven't done much.

plant 3 to 4 milkweed plants underneath or close-by.
the aphids and ants will gravitate to them.
aphids LOVE milkweed.
often, predator species will find large numbers of aphids,  take up residence, and multiply.
ever since ive planted a dozen milkweeds , aphids have been pretty much non existent on plants i used to have a problem with.
loquat mainly, but, several others too.
added nitrogen can make plants grow faster, but, it also weakens the cell walls
making it easier for aphids and other pests to attack new growth.


Quote
I'm thinking I should dig a decent size pit and use that area for compost for a month or two, then put the tree on top of the compost pile.  I really can't believe the boost those 2 seedlings have.

ive started "Composting-In-Place" (trademark coming  LOL)
i chop+drop leaves, twigs etc...
add coffee grounds, sawdust, fruit peels, more leaves, grass, weeds...
as a ring around my fruit trees... working very well so far...

best option IMHO, is a banana circle.
plant the fruit trees on the outside of your pit.

great explanation here... love this guys videos BTW...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OByyRK8sA0E




baccarat0809

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #13 on: July 08, 2017, 05:26:47 PM »
I live in Longwood, Florida, and two of my neighbors have mango trees in the ground and I've seen another 4 or 5 trees in the Longwood / Lake Mary area when I've been running around here.

One neighbor has a NDM and one has a home depot special.  The neighbors here don't really speak much English (we live on a "worldly" block with about 8 or 9 languages spoken on the street), so it's hard to verify with them the actual name.

Anyway, the NDM produced 6 fruits this year and has been in the ground for a while (I think about 3 years) and has put on some good height and branching.  The home depot special tree is about 3 feet tall now and just as wide, as the neighbor shaping the plant in the Japanese way  to keep it low but very, very wide.

The home depot special neighbor put a blanket over the tree about 5 times this last winter but nothing else and the tree looks incredibly healthy.  I'm not sure what the NDM guy did to protect the plant if he even did anything.  We had 1 night around 30 and a few nights right at the 32 degree mark this year.

On my end, I put down 10 seedlings in the beginning of June that I had been growing in pots.  2 of those seedlings were about a year old and the other 8 were around 3 to 6 months old.  I ended up loosing 3 seedlings due to transplant shock as they really weren't ready to transplant yet from the pots they were in (I think these were the 3 month old seedlings).  The 2 older seedlings are from Keitt parents and have very, very long internodes.  They're tall but show no branching and no real structure.  All of the smaller seedlings are from grocery store mango's so I have no idea of the parentage.  2 of them have a ton of leaves with very, very small internodes and the others look 'normal' for the lack of a better word.

On a bright note, I have 2 mango tree growing in my compost pile.  I opened the husks and took the seeds out before I composed some pits and other vegetable matter and to say they have taken off is an understatement.  I thought that they needed a lower nutrient environment but man they've flushed twice now and grown more than the 6 month old seedlings I transplanted into the regular ground.  I need to dig those out and move them to a better area.

In the future for any mango trees I'm planning on planting, I'm thinking I should dig a decent size pit and use that area for compost for a month or two, then put the tree on top of the compost pile.  I really can't believe the boost those 2 seedlings have.

I also started a bunch of papaya trees from seed in the beginning of May.  They're up to about 3 inches, maybe 4 inches tall now and growing well.  They were pretty stunted (and I have them in good soil), but I started using Miracle Grow on them and they've doubled in size over the last week and have around 15 dwarf cavandish banana trees growing.  I bought 1 tree from home depot that I grew in a pot for a while, split into three trees now I've got 15 trees growing.  Haven't harvested any bananas yet as I was more trying to get multiple plants growing than getting fruit.  Now that I'm up to 15 trees I'll work on growing them bigger and not separating them out.

As for containers, I have 7 mango trees growing in pots now.  I have a 25 gallon, two 7 gallon, two 3 gallon and two 1 gallon trees.  All but the 25 gallon trees are also seedlings.  One of the 7 gallon trees has flushed 3 times since May and doubled in size, but that growth started after we got all those rain days.  Rainwater has been significantly better for my trees than Longwood City water has been.

I tried growing a mamey sapote but something got at the seed after it through its first few leaves and destroyed the seed.  I also have 5 loquat trees growing from seed and a Florida Prince peach tree in pots that I got for free from Duke Energy.

I'm only renting the house I'm at now, so I don't really want to put too much in the ground.  I much prefer to keep trees in the ground, especially for watering purposes, but don't want to put too much work into the yard if we end up leaving.  I'm buying a house when my lease is up in 2 more years - the only questions is will it be this one or somewhere else.  I don't mind leaving the mango trees as they cost me just a few pennies to grow on my own.

My citrus trees have not done well.  One has been attacked by red ants constantly and no matter what I do I can't get rid of them.  I'm pretty sure its aphids on the tree but I'm ready to give up on that tree and just rip it out.  I've spent way too much money on that tree with sprays and the like and its just useless.  The other 4 citrus trees I put in the ground haven't done much.

Do you have pictures od the seedlings in the compost pile?

I'll get the pictures tomorrow for you.

baccarat0809

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #14 on: July 08, 2017, 05:44:20 PM »
It stopped raining enough for me to out there and get them now.

Both of these seeds were thrown out were thrown in sometime in May, as my son came home from school (he's 8 years old) and said he learned about composting and he wondered why we didn't do it.  Growing up on a farm we fed the chickens our scraps or composted, so I figured even though I was in an urban area I'd give it a shot.

i've pulled out 3 watermelon plants and 2 tomato plants that started in the pile and put those into the regular garden, so we've had a nice surprise.  I'll keep this pile going until the end of July then start a new pile and transfer the organic matter to my garden in early September when I put down my fall crops.

As for those mango trees, they're shaded by a small oak tree that's back there - i just need to figure out if i'll let em grow there or try to transplant them into my main row of seedlings that I've got going.  Not sure yet.





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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #15 on: July 09, 2017, 01:28:02 PM »
Like Cory (c24mccain) I live in Lakeland- we probably have 10-20 mango trees in our neighborhood alone. Some pretty large. Obviously once they're large you can't do much to them, but when they're smaller you can protect them well enough for freezes. However I'm pretty sure Nancy (Puglvr1) lives closer by Orlando and had some hard freezes that led to her cutting her trees back hard (hence the term "pugging" used frequently on this forum). Lakeland is a smidge warmer than there.
-Casey

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #16 on: July 09, 2017, 03:14:45 PM »
It stopped raining enough for me to out there and get them now.

Both of these seeds were thrown out were thrown in sometime in May, as my son came home from school (he's 8 years old) and said he learned about composting and he wondered why we didn't do it.  Growing up on a farm we fed the chickens our scraps or composted, so I figured even though I was in an urban area I'd give it a shot.

i've pulled out 3 watermelon plants and 2 tomato plants that started in the pile and put those into the regular garden, so we've had a nice surprise.  I'll keep this pile going until the end of July then start a new pile and transfer the organic matter to my garden in early September when I put down my fall crops.

As for those mango trees, they're shaded by a small oak tree that's back there - i just need to figure out if i'll let em grow there or try to transplant them into my main row of seedlings that I've got going.  Not sure yet.





Thank you for the pictures. i hope they will keep their good growth rate so that they reach a good size rapidly

igrowmangos

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #17 on: January 26, 2018, 02:03:45 PM »
Any updates to any of these trees after the freeze?
“When life gives you lemons, throw it back & say, “I said I wanted a MANGO!”

baccarat0809

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #18 on: January 26, 2018, 03:51:56 PM »
While I was able to bring my potted ones in doors, all the seedlings that I had planted died from the multiple freezes.  Being small still, I mounded the base of the mangos with mulch and put blankets and towels over them and I hoped the ground radiation was going to be enough to keep them safe, but nope.  Only 1 survived the first freeze but that one went to plant heaven the night we hit 25.

The next door neighbor with the home depot special put coverings over the tree and a bucket of water alongside the tree.  The tree handled the 30 degree night ok (the first 2 days), but the second freeze we had resulted in the outer leaves being completely fried and about 85% of the inner leaves were in bad shape.

I haven't seen the NDM to see how that one is going.

All my mangos in pots were brought inside for the freezes but were left outside on the mid 30 degree nights and are doing well.  They're back outside now and 2 of them have had recent flushes and one of the trees has pannicles forming - that tree is certainly to young to bear but I'm going to cut any fruit off if any does happen to take.

All my other potted trees were brought in during the freeze nights but did amazingly well during the mid 30's temps we had.  My longans, cherimoyas and atemoya seedlings are doing well and the longans are flushing now with a new growth spurt after that cold.  Also surprised a bit by some of my avocado seedlings, as I had started 14 seeds (2x florida, 12x hass) in the beginning of December and left those out in the cold (again, brought in for the freeze nights but not the mid 30's) and 8 of those have pushed growth out this last week and it looks like another 3 or so are ready any day to send up their first shoot.  The cold may have slowed down their germination but most look to have taken.  I know avocados are generally easy to grow but I'm hoping that having them sprout while enduring mid 30's well help develop a tree that can better stand these "artic" cold blasts.

I probably won't put any more seedling mangos in the ground here since I'll only be in this house for another year, but it was a good lesson to learn cheaply since they were just seedlings.

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #19 on: January 26, 2018, 08:49:16 PM »
One of my in grounds was completely fried despite my mulching and blankets. My Sweet tart was mostly fried although it has some green on the interior. My cotton candy being small had a good number of lower leaves covered in mulch and they are still green but the upper 3/4 of the tree is fried. My Graham next to it is in the same boat as the sweet tart. My potted ones in the garage of course were fine and like everyone else, one of them has blooms.

C24mccain

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #20 on: January 27, 2018, 07:55:22 AM »
Any updates to any of these trees after the freeze?

Here are some pics from this morning of my Kent, Keitt, Glenn and a mango seedling. The seedling is toast as I didn't  protect it. The three grafted trees have minor leaf damage but were saved using burn barrels during an 8 hour freeze reaching lows of 27-28 and a 6.5 hour freeze reaching lows of 25 degrees. I left them completely unprotected on a 3-4 hour freeze reaching a low of 30.










C24mccain

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #21 on: January 27, 2018, 08:17:47 AM »



This was the big shocker being unprotected during the 6.5 hour freeze down to 25 degrees. It's a Hasya Sapodilla. My starfruit trees were hammered that night but this guy looks untouched. I'm very surprised by this.

Squam256

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #22 on: January 27, 2018, 08:25:00 AM »



This was the big shocker being unprotected during the 6.5 hour freeze down to 25 degrees. It's a Hasya Sapodilla. My starfruit trees were hammered that night but this guy looks untouched. I'm very surprised by this.

Saps have pretty decent cold tolerance, especially once they get some size to them.

igrowmangos

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #23 on: January 27, 2018, 10:41:38 AM »
Sorry about the losses.  I would not totally opt out of growing mango trees be patient; I lost only the smallest of frail trees purchased online (never again). All my other trees are alive and well although with plenty of leaf burn of course: Coconut Cream, Valencia Pride (handled the cold the best), Orange Essence, Excalibur, St. Maui (looks the worse), Pina Colada, Lemon Zest, Maha Chanok, Nam Doc Mai was in a container and placed in garage during freeze, Angie was potted and left out side and exposed to the freeze (looks pretty bad as well) and a few more unknown mango trees. The Angie looks pretty bad but I left it outside in the freeze (2 days 32 and 2 days of 27) and its still alive. That Angie BTW only has one flush on it from pugging it last summer I got it from the Mango Fest at Fairchild. I however began to diversify my yard to include a tropic snow peach and currently in search of a Lula avocado and some other trees better suited for Zone 9B. I have seen that around Zone 9B, most mango trees that were pruned to shape  with a large rounded canopy received less damage. This may be because the trees older established system and dense foliage protects the inner portions of the tree. I'm I wrong?
“When life gives you lemons, throw it back & say, “I said I wanted a MANGO!”

John Travis

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Re: Central Florida Zone 9B Mango Growers Success Stories!
« Reply #24 on: January 27, 2018, 07:51:39 PM »
I live in Central FL and there are a lot of people who are successfully growing mangos. There are trees all over winter park, several around downtown Orlando, many in the Conway area, and even some more north in the Casselberry/Longwood area. I think Sanford might be pushing it, but I'm not sure. I think the key is finding the right varieties to grow. Specifically ones that don't need a constant costal breeze, and can deal with a little more humidity. Probably have success with Beverly, Pickering, Angie, sweet Tart varieties. I have a cotton candy and phoenix in the ground and I think they will recover from the recent freeze, but they have not fruited or flowered yet so I can't report on how they will do in this area.

Good luck!
John