The Tropical Fruit Forum

I have a very dwarf lychee tree that is not one other people have and it fruits very heavy on a very small tree.  It would be a good one to grow.  It came from ONG and I believe it may be a seedling of emporer or something similar that he got from China. You could probably get a tree if you go to san diego or get someone to buy one.  Mark Lee may know if they have more of them available. 

It has always set a ton of fruit but I dont know if it will this year because of all the cool and wet weather.

Its just the weather has been so cool this year.  Bad year for peaches and nectarine.  Everything is behind schedule. 

Quote from: TheGroveKeeper on May 15, 2025, 05:02:16 PM

What do you do once you have seedlings sprout?? Do you leave them in that mix till they develop the true leaves?

Yes, as soon as they have a couple true leaves I move them to my normal soil.  The only issue I've seen was a batch of capsicum pepper seeds stalled after sprouting and never got their true leaves, then eventually all yellowed and died.  I wonder if this could be an issue with any tiny seeds because the coir has no nutrients.  The tropical seeds have been fine in it.  Could be a bad batch of pepper seeds too, they are ones I had in dried fruits from prior year.

Yes you need fertilizer right away or that will happen.  Use quarter strength liquid nutrient on them.

How many hours of sun is the spot getting?  Your own house and the house to the south of yours must throw some shade in the morning or until after noon?

I dont think the wind is a big deal.  Im sure there is more wind where Im at up high fully exposed on a hill.  Trees dont seem to care much about that. 

Im thinking not enough sunshine.  Mangos and most of those things you listed like all day sun or at least all day filtered sun.

which direction does the house face?

Quote from: spaugh on May 04, 2025, 03:44:40 PM

Quote from: SoCalGardenNut on May 04, 2025, 03:19:33 PM

Brad, they are in the ground.

Oh I appologize, my reading comprehension skills are lacking and my eye sight is failing me.  I will go sit in the truck now.

Haha, no need to apologize. I do grow a lot of trees in container. I don’t have much luck with plums/pluots. 3 years ago I removed a 4x1 pluots, after 6 years in the ground, they produce zero fruit except the first year, that also gave me hope that they would eventually fruit for me. Maybe my soil is not good. The builder broughtthe soil from somewhere.

Strange.  You will hate me but the 4 in 1 fruits so hard the branches break here. 

The only ones that dont make much fruit for me are apricots.  I get some but mostly just huge trees with little fruit.

Are all your trees in pots?

I have the 2 low chill pluerry and they both fruit like crazy.  I think the issue could be growing these trees in pots.  They are big trees, not that suitable for container growing IMO.

Crazy, cherry trees are definitely difficult to grow. I’ve read that JamesN from GF killed all his cherry trees when he first started growing cherry, this is why I went out of my way and purchased some topsoil from Gary. I still have 5 cherry trees, but they might die in the future.

I have 15 cherry trees.  Never did anything special for them.  Just pop them in a hole in the ground and water it and mulch and they grow really easily.  i always plant them from bare root in January and do the mulch and light fertilizer the first year then they are off and care free.  Its the most vigorous trees I have.  The reason I planted so many was because they grow so easily and vigorous, I put them in my chicken area to provide shade and figure the wild birds and my chickens can eat all they want I don't even care.  They are just there for shade. 

If you look at cherry groves in northern CA they are in flat ground in the central valley with clay soil and flood irrigation.  Using sand mix like top pot that has no organic matter and drains so easily is probably not what you want for a cherry but that is just my guess.

Does grumachama grow in the UK?  Im thinking more than 7 years. 

Looks like it

Mine weren't as extreme as LillyPilly describes, but basically it would just grow long windy limbs with no branching.  I think I need to cut every branch once it reaches 2ft long to get a decent shape.

Yes you need to cut at 18" then you will get a nice bush shape.