What special or rare fruit trees can be grown in San Jose, California?

[HoangNguyen]

I am new to this forum.  I noticed this forum always has new topics everyday.  I am living in San Jose, California (Zopne 9b).  I like to grow special fruit trees in my back yard.  Besides of common fruits like plums, peaches, apples, pears, dragon fruits, persimmons..etc, what rare or special fruits can be grown in San Jose?  I have Hass, Pinkerton avocado, Hachiya persimmon, Italian prune, pineapple guava, yellow strawberry guava, tropical guava, white/red mulberry, special grapefruit, several kinds of passion fruits, cherimoya.  I wonder if anyone in San Jose can grow longan, lychee, mango, or soursop with minimal protection.

Hoang

[HoangNguyen]

Continue...

I love to exchange scion wood with anybody but I prefer the scion exchange locally.  Here are some picture of my fruit trees:

Hass scion grafted on seedling one year and half ago.  The Pinkerton scion grafted this August.



Cherimoya seedling (8-9 years old)



Italian prune


Frederick passion fruit



Tropical guava



Hachiya persimmon

[Luisport]

Very nice Hoang!!! 

[Ethan]

Hello Hoang,
welcome to the group, beautiful place you have.   Depending on your lows and duration of those lows, most likely you could get away with longan, lychee and mango.  You might have to protect them the first couple of years but once established they should be OK, maybe once every 50 years you might need to string Christmas lights.  The soursop you'd probably have to grow in a pot, on the plus side, Adam on this forum has fruited his in a pot in 9B.  This might be the way to go with rollinia too?

You should be able to grow white sapote, bananas, jujube and loquat (not tropical but good).  With proper placement and early protection, green sapote, kwai muk, maybe jack fruit, sapodilla???, custard apple, atemoya, sugar apples???, various eugenias and myciarias (jaboticaba, cabelluda, pitomba, Surinam cherry, COTRG), Macadamia nut (w/early protection), black sapote???, lucuma and probably lots of other things.

Good luck!

[simon_grow]

I've heard of people growing Lychee, Longan and Mango in San Jose. You will have to evaluate your yard and find out the warmest spots in your yard. South facing areas that are not shaded would be a great spot for these trees. Like others have mentioned, the young plants may need protection in the wintertime for the first couple years. You can bring them indoors or put them in the garage under artificial lights. You may also consider growing miraclefruit indoors. It's a great conversation piece.
Simon

[HoangNguyen]

Hi Ethan,

Thanks for the comments.  Yes, I had Li jujube (the picture below) but gopher ate its root.  The jujube died at the beginning of this year.  I had 2 white sapotes seedlings.  I will graft them when you are big enough.  My loquat tree is 10 feet.   I am looking for evergreen fruit trees which don't need too much protection in winter but their fruits are good.  They are, for example, pineapple guave, passion fruits, avocado, cherimoya



Hi Simon,

I had a friend who grows longan in San Jose.  He grows it in warm spot ,facing south (unprotected). It is about 10 yrs old tree.  However, he says his longan fruits don't taste good.  The fruits don't have enough heat to ripe properly.  Do you remember who in San Jose grow longan successfully?  What are the most hardy longan varieties?

Hoang

[MangoFang]

nice job, hoang - everything looks quite healthy.
I am 9b here in Palm Springs and I can grow
(with protection for the young ones) mango
and papaya.......

good luck - gary

[JF]

nice job, hoang - everything looks quite healthy.
I am 9b here in Palm Springs and I can grow
(with protection for the young ones) mango
and papaya.......

good luck - gary

Gary
Your 9B is much different than San Jose....it's 400 miles north. He could probably grow mangos but they would need protection for the entire winter for 2-3years. Not worth the trouble I would grow in containers.

[PltdWorld]

Don't forget about Mango Professor's new selections of mangos, which I would bet would do okay up there.

Microclimates, being able to plant up against south facing walls, etc will also help push zone limits.

Lots of good suggestions already, so I'll chime in and say that's a nice looking Cherimoya seedling - how does it taste?

[simon_grow]

Hello Hoang,

I do not recall where I saw the thread, it could have been from a different forum. It is vaguely in my memory because my aunt lives in San Jose and I wanted to encourage her to try growing some tropicals/subtropicals. From the web surfing I have done, Kohala seems to be mentioned as more cold hardy than Sri Chompoo and Biew Kiew.

For your friend that has the 10 year old Longan, I believe the he can drastically improve the sweetness and quality(size, flesh to seed ratio) by culling about 1/2 his fruit when they are pea sized. There is a YouTube video that explains in more detail if you search for Longan. I also started a thread a while back, I believe it was titled "how to improve the size and quality of fruit". You basically thin fruit and give good organic or chemical fertilizers that have potassium and phosphorus, something like 0-10-10.

It would be great if you could pass this information to your friend and let him try it this year. I bet the fruit will be much larger and sweeter.
Simon

[fruitlovers]

You could also try growing some of the other highland sub tropicals, like tamarillo, naranjilla, cocona, babaco, mountain papaya, papayuelo, casana, lucuma.

[HoangNguyen]

Luisport, MangoFang, and Oscar,

Thank you for the comments.

JF,

You are correct.  9B in San Jose, CA is different than 9B in Palm Spring, CA (LA).  The cold in San Jose starts earlier and last longer than in Palm Spring.  That's why I barely see people around my neighbor grow mango, star fruit, longan, or Lychee.  Even though cherimoya can be grown successfully in San Jose, I only see a few in my area.  NorthCal has been hit by arctic freeze.  This morning at 7:30AM, outdoor thermometer showed 27F.  I was surprised 1 foot in ground cherimoya got burnt so bad while 1 foot in pot manila mango didn't get burn at all.  Both of them are outside and unprotected.  Mango pot is against the south fence while cherimoya is in the center of my front yard.

[NewGen]

nice job, hoang - everything looks quite healthy.
I am 9b here in Palm Springs and I can grow
(with protection for the young ones) mango
and papaya.......

good luck - gary

Gary
Your 9B is much different than San Jose....it's 400 miles north. He could probably grow mangos but they would need protection for the entire winter for 2-3years. Not worth the trouble I would grow in containers.

Is your papaya in ground or container? My in ground papaya grew to 10+ feet, but then died from the cold last year.  I'm not sure if it could survive even if I had covered it with some freeze cloth. I'm determined to get another papaya next spring.

[forumfool]

Emma Prusch Park has a CRFG "rare fruit orchard" in San Jose near King rd/280/101. You should check it out. My passionfruit got pretty big damage from the 27 degree day...

[HoangNguyen]

Emma Prusch Park has a CRFG "rare fruit orchard" in San Jose near King rd/280/101. You should check it out. My passionfruit got pretty big damage from the 27 degree day...

I went to the park many times.  The only fruit that tastes good is white sapote.  I saw there was a paw paw tree but later was removed.  Some fruit trees I never see their fruits.  Probably, people picked them before their maturities.  This morning I saw 27F at 7:30AM.  That meant the 24F or 25F recorded at 5:00AM.  My passion fruit got burnt about 50% but its fruits still are hanging.

You are also in San Jose.  If you want to exchange scion, please let me know or PM me.

Hoang

[forumfool]

Yes that white sapote is nice, they have guavas and a nice mulberry tree but most people pick the fruit (too early) that's why it's so hard to find... There are a couple of cool things I've tried there but don't know what they are, the labels are missing...

If you are looking for scions you should go to the CRFG scion exchange at Emma Prusch...see link for date... coming up in about a month...

http://scvcrfg.wordpress.com/activities/

[Sven]

Also the CRFG meetings are good for more than just scion wood.  You can talk to other growers in the area and see what will survive and maybe get some more ideas.

http://scvcrfg.wordpress.com/
http://www.crfg.org/local/

[HoangNguyen]

Yes that white sapote is nice, they have guavas and a nice mulberry tree but most people pick the fruit (too early) that's why it's so hard to find... There are a couple of cool things I've tried there but don't know what they are, the labels are missing...

If you are looking for scions you should go to the CRFG scion exchange at Emma Prusch...see link for date... coming up in about a month...

http://scvcrfg.wordpress.com/activities/

I tasted mulberry there but the taste is not as good as mine.  I have white and red mulberry trees.  If the labels are missing you can look at the map.  I saw 3 or 4 tropical guavas but no fruits when ever I visited the park.  I knew there was scion exchange at the park around Jan every year but I haven't been there before.  I heard most of the scions are very common such as apple, pear, plum, peach, nectarine...

[forumfool]

Yes, it is mostly stone/pomme fruit. I have seen fuzzy kiwi, currants, fig, mulberry, feijoa, and sapote seeds in the past. As mentioned above you might meet some growers and you can get scion wood from them for subtropicals at a more appropriate time of the year.

[xyspider]

I am also in San Jose.  Interested in learn & plant some tropical rare fruit tree. 

[fruitlovers]

Tree tomato (aka tamarillo) and naranjilla should do well in San Jose in partial shade.

[jbaqai]

I am also from sanjose ca area

and year ago, i was in same position as you guys are right now

but I pulled the trigger and went on shopping madness, brought lots of plants online from florida nurseries

so welcome to the club and do share your experience here

JB

[Cool_man]

Wow, I did not know that there are crazy folks like myself trying to grow tropical fruit trees here in San Jose got into the hobby  few years ago, last winter killed most of my collection (under estimate the freezing temp). Hoang, you can grow longan and lychee quite well here in San Jose, mine fruited well last summer sadly they all died because of the freeze in Dec. I just start my collection again this year, although they are still small. So far i have a couple of Hak ip lychee, DR longan, jaboticaba, cherry of rio grande, a couple variety of mulberry, 4 types of jujube trees, and dragon fruits, avocado plus a few of other citrus. I may try to add a few mango trees someday  if my wife let me put them in our bedroom during the winter
Btw, your trees are looking good.

[Bush2Beach]

Cool Man, how old were your Longan and Lychee that did not survive the freeze?

[Cool_man]

I had my longan and lychee for about 7 years but the trees must be older since I got them from a friend in SoCal, they were neglected for several years since my friend just leave them in the original pot from nursery (impulse purchase and not knowing how to care for them) and waiting for them to fruit. Tired of them not growing and gave them to me, with a little care and feeding last year was the second year I got fruit from them not a whole lot but much better than the year before, last year I had about 40+ lychees and close to 60 longan fruits. The trees were only about 4 feet tall. They were doing well under the patio until last Dec, I guessed I had under estimated the freeze that we got when there were about 10 straight days of low 20s, I was pushing it a little hard.