I think City of Tamarac changed their code since I last looked. They used to have a calculation that described the amount of nonliving ground cover permitted based on tree size. Now it reads as follows:

"All lot areas not covered by driveways, or other paved areas or structures shall be planted with lawn grass, ground cover or other appropriate landscape materials, free of weeds. Lawns shall be neatly maintained at a height of four (4) inches or less."

And they define landscape materials as

"Landscape material means any of the following, or a combination thereof, including, but not limited to, grass, ground cover, shrubs, vines, hedges, trees or palms and other materials such as rocks, pebbles, sand, mulch; but not including paving."

Victory for the Tamarac mulchers?

If memory serves, I got that from "An Illustrated Guide to Pruning" by Gilman (this guy: https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/topic_a24555900) several years ago and eventually agreed with the results after giving it a shot (I had previously been pruning under growth too quickly, in an attempt to push trees upwards and give myself some space to walk).

Thanks. The soil is very healthy. Lots of earthworms and microbial activity. The counter-intuitive part was that my trees were all experiencing worsening nutrient deficiencies and the quality of fruit was steadily declining year after year as I continued to apply mulch. That's when I hired Har to consult, who guided me through the process of discovery that mulch alone is not sufficient for healthy plants. Took me a couple of years before I finally was able to believe it.

The awesome part is -- once I started laying down nutrition, tree health and fruit quality started to improve, and now my trees are healthier than ever. That soil is sort of like a giant reservoir. Once you fill it up, it holds nutrients very well. CEC is in the 20's.

A lot of people reference environments like the amazon rainforest as evidence as to why mulch alone is sufficient. However, few realize that the amazon rainforest actually gets its nutrition from the sky -- in the form of dust storms from ancient sea beds, which travel across the ocean. Unfortunately, Florida doesn't benefit from that :-).

Contrary to what I once believed, conventional fertilizers don't seem to have an impact on soil beneficials. I've been using conventional fertilizers for over 3 years, and worm activity has not declined as far as I can tell.

At any rate, the key is to come to grips with the notion that mulching alone is usually not sufficient, which for me was a tough pill to swallow. Over the short term, mulch doesn't have much of an effect. But after many years of mulching and the accumulation several inches of decomposed plant matter (where feeder roots begin to live exclusively in the decomposed mulch), the effects are easily observed. Also, a simple mulch ring around a tree will likely never have a significant impact on tree health nor fruit quality. It's only when you mulch over the entire yard, where one is substantially changing the soil composition, that the adverse affects are readily visible.

That there is a healthy layer of topsoil you've generated.  After two years of mulching I'm now starting to see this too.

What section of municipal code are they citing? https://www.codepublishing.com/CA/Cerritos/

This is the reason why I've chosen to live in a blue-collar neighborhood.. even though I've paid off the mortgage and could easily "upgrade." It seems that there is a positive correlation between picky / finicky neighbors and median household income (or alternately median household wealth).

I asked my HOA if it would be OK to mulch over the entire back yard. The response I got was "we need to consult our attorney." I just went ahead and did it anyway. That was 12 years ago.

At any rate, cities only tend to be concerned with mulching the front yard. Backyard shouldn't be an issue. What's odd is that a Leftist California city would prefer grass over mulch -- in an area known for its water shortages and where environmental issues as mundane as cow flatulation are regulated by state law.

for the regular jabo, it's by color. Should be as black as possible. Not sure about the red one.

Thanks! Mine is somewhere around 6 - 7 feet tall but over 10 years old.

Wow Jeff - congrats !! I haven’t been on the forum for awhile , Happily surprised to see your Lucs fruiting so well !

My Lucs is putting on size, no fruit growing so far this year.  Over 10’ tall.

Seems as yours is genetically more prolific.

New disease that was described in another post from a few weeks ago. Harmless. Most of my trees have it now too.

OK this one had more acidity to it. I think I let the others ripen too long. Seed to flesh ratio isn't quite what I was hoping for. The 2 seeds were huge on this one. Flavor is quite good though.

Ahh darnit. I wanted tart. As for flavor comparisons, too early to say. I've only ever had a couple of mangosteens that I got at an asian market.

Quote from: Cookie Monster on April 12, 2019, 07:19:38 PM

Are these supposed to be sub-acid? The couple I've had so far have been really sweet but with no detectable acidity.

I remember Raul mentioned that if u want with sub-acid u go with the sharpie variety..

I suppose u have the regular luc variety. How does it taste compare to mangosteen and what fruit is it comparable to? Like an improved achaacha?

Are these supposed to be sub-acid? The couple I've had so far have been really sweet but with no detectable acidity.

There are myriad other factors. For example, the amazon rainforest gets nutrition from the sky: https://www.wired.com/2015/02/sahara-keeps-amazon-green/

Also, plants like mangoes are not necessarily what one would find in a rain forest :-).

At any rate, those were my observations from a little over a decade of heavy mulching (> thousand cu yards). There's plenty of info online indicating that my experience wasn't unique.

If you go into a forest the ground is littered with fallen leaves, twigs, branches etc. Noone is watering or fertilizing these trees and they may be hundreds or thousands of years old. There are vast mycorrhizal networks connecting these trees and they share nutrients and water. They thrive in a fungally dominated soil that is created by the trees themselves. I believe replication of this by layering tree trimmer mulch is an ideal environment to grow trees. I have been adding mulch for years consisting of tree trimmer mulch, oak leaves and yard waste and have observed no negative effects nor mineral deficiencies. The soil life is alive and loaded with worms, fungi etc.

Wholly cow, this list is a gold mine of mango cultivar descriptions: https://www.tropicalacresfarms.com/mangos

Definitely top work. Easy to learn.