I've had a love hate relationship with Guava over the last 16 years or so and about 10 years ago I gave up... defeated by white fly, scale, mealy bugs and a general inability to keep Guava trees healthy. The exceptions were Strawberry and Lemon guava which have been surprisingly trouble free. Unfortunately a neighbor has a tasteless poorly kept unnamed guava variety which has suffered neglect over the years and it seems as if his tree's issues had contributed to my problems.
Anyway, a while back I decided to populate my patio with potted guava trees in order to maintain a close watch on, keep them pruned, watered and fertilized and at the first sign of anything unusual under or on a leaf I removed it.
Luckily the general lack of white fly, scale and mealy bugs locally and my bagging fruit early have contributed to the health of the fruit and trees and today I enjoyed the first of the fruits of my efforts.
The fruit was still green at picking at ~ 2-1/2" across and after a few days indoors to ripen and turn yellow the sweet aroma wafting through the house told me when to juice it. All I can day is wow! My love of Guava is as renewed as my efforts to have a continuing source of fruit!
I know not everyone appreciates the Guava or many other fruits for that matter, but I wonder if it's because they haven't tried a selected cultivar with proven traits?
Anyway, now I wait for the Scarlet, Barbie Pink and Variegated Guava fruits to mature.
