The Tropical Fruit Forum

I have a grafted purple Caimito from Top Tropicals that I bought a bit over two years ago, planted in my yard in San Diego and completely neglected aside from irrigation. It is maybe 9' tall now and growing very well but has not flowered. Of course I won't keep it if convinced it will never flower but I'll give it a few more years maybe, but the tree does survive without any apparent issue here.

I'm jealous! I've had a grafted red jaboticaba in the ground for three years that still hasn't flowered.

The zoo has a bunch of excellent kei apple trees. One is near the elephants and another is on the way to the tortoises, opposite the bananas along the big open area.

Surinam cherry does well with part sun and I suspect other eugenias will as well. Guava and mango, on the other hand, are some of the most sun-critical trees, needing as much sun as they can get for optimal fruit quality. Wax jambu and carambola are good part-shade plants.

Logees sells this plant.

The only thing to keep in mind is average vs extreme temperatures. For example Tampa is considered zone 9B but it's from what I've seen it's usually 80 degrees every day in the middle of winter, with the low being 50+. But they have had record lows of well below freezing. On the other hand San Diego is typically in the 50s or low 60s in winter, with the low being around 35-40 degrees on the coldest nights, but the all-time record low is only 28 and really I have never seen it go below 35 in my 12 years living here. And it's considered zone 10B even though it's much colder than Tampa generally, as well as drier.

But I too like to experiment. My Ross Sapote is doing well, wax jambus thrive, green sapote is really growing well though no fruit yet (too young), caimito survives the winter easily but hasn't flowered yet... you never know until you try.

There is no such thing as a nationally invasive plant in the US. Something invasive in Hawaii is not invasive in Alaska, obviously. Individual states set the laws on what plants and animals are allowed.

I bought mine from Top Tropicals. It is actually not in clay; I had dug up all of the root-infested clay next to my house and filled it entirely with potting soil so it's highly organic and really fast draining. The soil's only a couple feet deep at most though, with a slab of pavement underneath, so hopefully it's sufficient depth. If not I'll have to move the tree.

Mine in San Diego is also blooming now. None of my other pouterias are blooming though.

Agreed, I was just going to suggest sapodilla because the fruits do not look edible but are good and the tree is pretty resilient as long as it's watered decently.

You mean you cut off the tip of every branch? Does that encourage more branches for denser fruit production?

OK but when did the fruit actually set (begin to grow out of the flowers)? For example surinam cherry ripens in about a month while sapodilla takes a year to ripen. My Ross set three months ago, meaning the tiny fruits began appearing out of the flowers back then, and I'm just curious how much longer it'll be until they're ripe.

A bit off topic but how long does Ross Sapote usually take to ripen? My fruits set three months ago.