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« on: May 22, 2016, 08:25:48 PM »
For years I've been wondering what, if any, subtropical fruit trees could make it in my backyard. This year I decided to stop wondering. I'm going to plant several dozen trees, from mango to jaboticaba, black sapote to green sapote, and I will find out once and for all.
Yes, this is a stupid thing to do and I know I'm going to kill a lot of trees. My home in Los Gatos, CA is zone 9b (Sunset 15/16), and while it's relatively warm for the Bay Area, nights are still cool and winters are still cold. Still, the more I hear about NorCal zone pushers succeeding, the more I wonder what my little microclimate could accomplish. Only one way to find out!
So, here is the list of trees I have collected and begun to plant:
* Mango (Antonio, Tequila Sunrise, 4 others)
* Cherry of the Rio Grande
* Cedar Bay Cherry
* Surinam Cherry
* Jaboticaba (Red, Sabara, Yellow, Trunciflora, Grimal, Coronata)
* Pitomba
* Grumichama
* Peanut Butter Fruit (Argentea)
* Black Sapote
* Green Sapote
* Lucuma (highland)
* Cinnamon Apple
* Sunsapote
* Lychee (Mauritius)
* Longan (Kohala, Biew Kiew)
* Genip (Yellow)
* Achacha
* Imbe
* Luc's Mexican Garcinia
* Sugar Apple
* Wax Jambu
* Starfruit (Dwarf Hart)
* Cinnamon (True)
* Allspice
As I said, they're going in the ground, not in pots, because my goal is not just to keep them alive, but to observe how they respond to my climate. I do plant to cover and heat the smallest of the trees during winter, but not the larger ones.
If every single tree dies except for one, I will consider it a success to have discovered one new fruit that grows in my backyard. If not a single tree makes it, that's ok too, then I will be relieved of my tropical lust and can focus again on fruit trees of temperate climates.
In the coming days and weeks I will follow up with photos of each of the plants and begin tracking their progress in this thread.