An experiment

[BenG]

I'm planning on doing a little experiment this coming spring. I'm going to place several tropical edibles outside throughout the garden's various micro-climates, and see how they fare, with the end goal of getting at least one of them to bear ripe fruit. The two "test subjects" that I have currently obtained (Neither are outside yet, I'm waiting for spring to aid acclimation) are a "Purple Possum" passionfruit vine and an unknown variety of cherimoya. Also thinking of trying avocado, starfruit, taro, and white sapote.

I was just checking to see if any of those are bad options for zone 9b, or if anyone wants to recommend anything else.

Thank you!

[Nyuu]

Pretty much everything you say you can do already easily except the white sapote to I'm not too sure about that one but purple star apple could work

[Santa Maria 9b]

I have all of those plants growing in Central Coast's 9b without any frost protection, so it shouldn't be a problem.

[CherimoyaDude]

Watch Joe Hewitt's youtube series on tropical fruit in the bay and try some ones that he didn't already test

[Mike T]

If you can figure out the min temps in your warmer spots and look at lists of minimum tolerable temps there could be some extra option to try. Tropical SE Asian species may be challenging and there are plenty of species to try taking to the limit and seeing if they make it.

[bob_tu]

I dont know about the others but avocados are known to grow around here so that's easy. I have a white sapote that went through this winter unprotected no problems but a bit of leaf curl.

[Tropheus76]

Well I will tell you after this current polar issue passes how my completely unprotected 6 year old white sapote comes out.  Its about 5 feet tall so far, but has suffered major caterpillar issues its entire life. Last year I made a concerted effort to remove them and scrape eggs off the bottoms of the leaves and I got some really good growth over the warm months. Hopefully this weather wont knock it out completely.

[Jack, Nipomo]

We are in 9b CA, central coast, 15 miles from ocean.  Everyone you mentioned grows and prospers here.  We have experienced freezes in the past, but rarely now.  Have a 46 year old multigrafted white sapote that has never been affected by frost/freezes.  Years ago lost 3ft tall macadamias to frost, but have over 40 now that never have any damage.  Cherimoyas in the past could be a challenge, but not for the past 20 years.  About 50 different avocado varieties don't mind winter's cold.  The one tree I wouldn't worry about is the White sapote.  My yellow sapotes are a bit sensitive, but really not an issue.  Have recently discovered a little frost damage on a jakfruit and a couple of new mangos.  Damage was a result of frozen dew on leaves a couple of weeks ago.  I observed that and was curious of potential effects.  No wood damage, just a bit of upper leaf scorching. Looks like I try some more mangos.  Hopefully, as with macadamias and others, maturity does make a difference (along with global warming).