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« on: February 12, 2026, 10:34:09 PM »
I thought it might be good to start a thread about hardy replacements for people who have lost Mango trees in the freeze. I realize that nothing can truly take the place of a good Mango, but having some cold-hardy trees that you don't have to worry about sure makes it easier to deal with a freeze. Here is my list, I hope others chime in:
1. Tropic Beauty Peach
Pros: Fast growing, quick bearing, low chill, excellent flavor, probably the closest thing to a hardy mango
Cons: Short lived (typically about 10 years), needs to be pruned/thinned, plum curculio
2. Scarlet Beauty Plum
Pros: low chill, excellent flavor when tree ripe, self fertile, disease resistant
Cons: plum curculio, requires pruning for best production (can alternate bear if not pruned), the peach rootstock commonly used in the nursery trade shortens tree life
3. Mulberries
Pros: very few disease issues, fast growing, high production, many variety choices with a range of flavors and seasons
Cons: some of the best varieties need grafted to nematode resistant rootstock, extra early varieties like Thai Dwarf can lose their crop in a freeze, birds love the fruit, deer love the leaves
4. Loquats
Pros: this is a better fruit than people realize, lots of great homemade products can be made from the fruit (dehydrated loquats are a personal favorite of mine)
Cons: fire blight, poor shelf life, Caribbean fruit fly can be an issue in some areas
5. Muscadine Grapes (and possibly some bunch grapes like Tari's Burgundy or Lake Emerald)
Pros: the Supreme and Ison varieties that I have grown for many years are resistant to almost everything--bugs, disease, heat, cold, drought, flooding, and hurricanes, new seedless varieties look interesting
Cons: Thick skins and seeds that need to be spit out are an issue for some, some of the best varieties need a pollinator (Supreme), racoons will eat everything if they find you, needs a trellis or arbor to climb
6. Yangmei
Pros: Can be grafted to wax myrtle (low input requirements), cold hardy?, high value crop
Cons: High price of plants, low availability for the high priced plants, unknown cultivar adaptation to Central Florida conditions (based on the range in China something will work here the question is what?), most bmvarieties need a pollinator, hard to graft
7. Sugarcane
Pros: the juice is great, easy to grow, high yielding, easy to propagate, bedded stubble can go through some some extreme cold, flood tolerant, surplus can be made into cane syrup
Cons: can be a bit labor intensive to harvest and process, cane juicers are expensive, needs lots of water (fertilizer helps, too)
8. Figs
Pros: excellent flavor for some varieties that I have tried (White Madeira #1 was tasty and is reported to be productive), quick to produce, can produce multiple crops per year
Cons: nematodes (progress is being made), open eye fruits can split or rot in wet weather,
Fig rust, must be dormant to be cold hardy, not all varieties are delectable and productive
9. Persimmons
Pros: can be grafted to Florida native roots, several varieties seem to do well here in central Florida--I have received reports from friends that Hudson, Fuyu (non-astringent), and Rosseyanka (which is a hybrid between the Asian and American persimmon) do well here in Central Florida
Cons: astringency, many varieties are dwarfed on American persimmon rootstock (maybe this is a pro?), some disease issues, some people do not like the texture
10. Blackberries (and Mysore raspberries?)
Pros: easy to grow and propagate, thornless varieties make picking easy (Ouichita was thornless and had good flavor), can be very productive
Cons: needs to be pruned, not all varieties are sweet
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