The Tropical Fruit Forum

I don't have any experiences with cacao.  But I did have similar issues with my mandarin that was in a pot so many years and  got root bounded sinceI never repotted it.   It was on the verge of dying with leave mostly yellow.  Then I decided to repot it and at the same time cut the bounded roots off ,and amazingly, it came back to live really fast and it has lushes of green leaves and larger plants as well.    So, I'm not sure if it was the soil or cutting of the bounded roots off that did the work.  That was about 1.5yrs ago.  I will need to do the same thing again next year.  This time, I will pot it into a 10gal nursery pots so that I can later on cut the bottom off and just let it grow into the soils.

I was under the impression that potted citrus won't produce fruit until the roots run out of space to grow.

Not specficially a fruit rather a spice, but it's a tropical plant and i'm very keen on getting my hands on a pair of them.

Any clues on a US source? I ordered some from a dimwitted grower from India through E-Bay that did not pack them correctly, so they dried out and died by the time they arrived on my door, most of the damange done was while stuck in customs/transit.

Looks like bug and fungus/bacterial issue. Suggest repotting them yearly if possible and some insecticidal soap or oils.

Thanks for letting me know, gives me some hope. I've planted these on the protected side of the yard so the winter winds won't be as harsh there.

I do worry a bit as all the foliage has gone from them and I can't tell if it's going to come back or not. I planted these around july, they haven't recovered from the shock since then.
I grabbed these despite the expense because there had been no grower online at least offering them in the few years that i've been looking for unusual plants.

I have had limited flirtations with star fruit the corpse of the last one is now mulch in my yard. It's supposedly a tropical plant.

Yellowing leaves is often a lack of nutrients/nitrogen or overwatering, sometimes a combination.

I prefer to wait until the soil around my plant is dry down to 2 inches below the surface before watering. Overwatering combined with heat stress (when it happens) can kill even the toughest plant.

I spent lots of summers in Vancouver as a kid, so i'm semi-familiar with the area.

I've never heard of a Citsuma, are there any other types of citrus you've had luck with? I've tried growing mandarins that claimed to be cold hardy but they proved to be too delicate. The improved Meyer lemon was also too delicate, it responded quite negatively to cold (not freezing) and steady rainy conditions. I haven't had any impulse to try my luck with it again after that.

how did you cross those?

Hello I am a former military person with a diverse background. I live in an area with a very wide variance in climates, fossil records show it used to be tropical with palm trees but it's now mostly an off the beaten path ski-season area and hiking trails the rest of the year.

I bought my first house in 2015 and have been slowly transforming a grassy but otherwise barren yard into a chaotic but hopefully lush mini-orchard with a wide variety of plant life. I'm no landscaper so it's all being done by brail pretty much.

The outdoor area: Apple trees, Peach Trees, Pear trees, 1 Nectarine, Grape vines, lots of non grafted roses, a breeding pair of hybridized pistachio trees, plum trees, cherry trees.

Indoors: All spice plants, a few banana plants, Jasmine, 1 orchid, some mint plants.

I've had several Allspice trees/shrubs outside here and never had any damage from frost/freezing.  They have certainly been hardy down to 26 degrees with adequate soil/air moisture.

Unfortunately I live near the Canadian boarder in a ski area, it's prone to severe cold snaps of 5-10 degrees and sometimes in the negatives with the average being in the 20's. I tried growing some types of citrus that claimed to tolerate down to the 20's or high 10's. They died when temps sustained 30 F and below for a prolonged period with a all time seasonal low of 16.

The conditions during the warm months are almost tropical with typical seasonal highs of 80 plus in the day and sometimes 60+ at night with rainy trends. The warm months are too short to attempt bananas outdoors, I just rescued my outdoor blue java banana plant that was really happy out there with a big rootball, some early frost that dropped the night time temps down to 28 had ruined all the growth it had achieved starting in late spring. It's base is almost too large to repot.

I tried starfruit too, despite being grown indoors the indoor temp and my ineptitude proved too stressful for it, so it died a few months after I got it.

I have a carnivorous plant starter pot on a whim, and also because of the issue of these pots attracting flying pests. It's a cape sundew.