The Tropical Fruit Forum

Finally! Seven years after planting the seed, one of my Pickering Seedlings is flowering!







The tree is about 8' tall, got set back by the freezes a couple years ago, but actually stood strong during Hurricane Ian:

This is what I did last night:

Oolie, yes, a few times. But never more than two sprout out, and one has always been sickly and died. But definitely a separate hatchling.

If anyone buys bulk Yangmei seeds and wants to sell, say 5, I'd be interested if the price is reasonable. Thanks, and thanks for offering these, Jaboticaba45!

I would like to echo ronke47's thoughts! Beautiful stuff there, simon_grow!

Thank you, spaugh and drymifolia!

We were supposed to go down to 38° here with a wind chill of 30°. I was surprised to learn wind chill and "feels like" temps matter not to plants. What affects them is actual temperature.

That being said, I got to practice covering some stuff, just because the way weather forecasts can be off and that was some cold air up north.

I used 6' tall bamboo stakes and wrapped them in frost cloth. Should we have been forecast to freeze, my plan would be to place "candle heaters" in the covered shelter.

Maybe with the bigger trees, I would try a similar setup, but without being able to cover the tops of the tall ones, hope the rising warm air from the candle heaters would help some? Hopefully I'll never need to experiment with that.

Per my car's thermostat, the lowest I got here was 42°.

roblack, the Cedar Bay Cherry seeds are similar to Suriname Cherry. The Fruit of Mystery seeds are small (as apparently is the fruit when compared to Cedar Bay Cherry). They were almost like sunflower kernels. If your tree fruits and has tiny fruits with tiny seeds, maybe? But if it's a Cedar Bay Cherry, it'll be easy (easier?) to tell.

"Criollo" Cacao seeds received (one had even germinated), many thanks, Lance!

I wouldn't do anything but let it settle in and see what it does on its own. Besides, I recently discovered that the "pruning just below a node to get staggered limbs" trick doesn't always work. Tried that on a seedling and the tree kicked out a bunch of shoots all originating at the previous node. It was as if I cut right above that node.

Hi, Kaz, no, not yet. It did fruit last year, but I was out of town when they ripened and either birds or rodents got them. The fruits were small and short.

I'm tempted to cut the larger trunk off entirely to only let the smaller ones grow. I'm not familiar with mulberry tree pruning for size. Nor sure if I should leave all the side branches, either. Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks!

Thanks, DavidBYE, it does help!

I'd like no repeat of the back-to-back freezes of January 2022😳