The Tropical Fruit Forum

I ordered a batch of seeds and they arrived in great shape!  Seller was very helpful.

To get over the same guilt of culling healthy trees, I now graft the fruiting scion onto new seedlings when possible so at least the scion isn't lost.  I try to keep the new tree as a bonsai as small as possible. 

Also, when pruning keep in mind the fruiting habits of various types.  Trees that fruit on new wood like guavas should be fine to prune, and things like jackfruit that fruit on internal wood should handle pruning fine.  Trees that fruit on year-old wood won't get much of a crop if they have to be aggressively pruned.  I got had some in-ground citrus trees that made huge crops of fruit initially, but once I had to prune them to keep them from overgrowing they basically made no fruit and were clearly a waste.  With citrus you can regraft onto extreme dwarfing rootstock, which is what I have done for their replacements, but I don't think this is an option for most other tree types.

Are your lychees growing well?  I have a few air-layered ones and they are always dying back as fast as they grow.

And has your mallika mango fruited?  Mine is super healthy and produces tons of fruitlets every year but none hold to maturity.  It is a tease

I dunno what is typical for garcinias in general but I did find a million sprouted g. hombroniana / seashore mangosteen seeds on the ground when I visited the fruit and spice park.   I had ordered some cherapu seeds from fruitlovers.com a few years ago but got no germination.  I wish somebody would sell seedlings

If you don't actually want to move to Florida, you can buy land where you do live and build greenhouses.  That is what I am doing.  Obviously it costs much more and is more restrictive than growing outdoors in an appropriate climate, but moving can itself be expensive and isn't always realistic.

If you own land you don't live on you have to be able to defend it from squatters, thieves, vandals, dumping, etc.

For what you are describing you might be able to essentially lease somebody's unused backyard

I have one, I will PM you

Brian, what has done well in pot for you?

All of my grafted citrus have been great in containers.  I think the issue with Meyer lemon is that it is commonly sold as a rooted cutting and maybe they do not do well on their own roots.  Most non-lemon citrus are grafted, lemons are one of the few that readily root and Meyer lemons are very popular

I have had meyer lemon trees in containers for nearly a decade now and they have NEVER been healthy and happy.  They are always dropping leaves, fruit, looking haggard.  It seems they are always grown from cuttings, I am going to try grafting one and see if it does better on a trifoliate rootstock instead of its own roots

Today I picked a St Teresa lemon, a Pink Variegated Eureka lemon, and a Buddha's Hand citron and tried them all side by side.  I do agree that the Italian lemon is less bitter than the Eureka type, though I think I actually prefer the Eureka for its stronger peel flavor.  The Buddhas Hand is pretty bland compared to the others.  I have read that citrons have a stronger oil content in the rind but I am not tasting it here. 

Shipping a bushy 3gal plant is likely to cost far more than the plant itself.  I would think you can find one in a ~4in pot for a reasonable price. 

edit - not as bad as I thought.   $25 to ship UPS ground a theoretical "7lb 3'x1'x1' package to Chattanooga"

btw you probably want two pitangatubas for pollination as they don't set fruit well on their own.   They fruit really early from seed, if you find two small seedlings you can probably have flowers within a year or two.

I wouldn't worry so much about the current crop, there is not much you can do to "force" them to hold on.  You are likely stressing the tree with change.  I would focus on letting it stabilize with healthy foliage and then it will be in a great position to hold a quality crop.  Meyer lemons flower often so you shouldn't have to wait long.

Can these realistically be grown and fruit in a container?