The Tropical Fruit Forum

Wow, looks good. What's it taste like?

My lows are around 25f-30f and my highs can be 110-115f. I don't think the Bay is nearly as brutal. That heat wave had us over 100f for a week straight with evening lows of 75f so you can see how a temperate tree just couldn't handle the heat. Most temperate trees I have suffered, but paw paws by far the worst.

Depending on where you are in SD County, you may be milder than I am and could do a full sun planting.

We were over 100 for at least 5 days I think, peaked at 111, with a couple others 108 or 109. Evening lows of 75 sounds cooler than here, it was I think 90 degrees at 9 pm on the hottest nights. I had to move almost every single potted plant into shade for that week, and water them twice a day. I was hosing down the pawpaws and other in-ground stuff too. Probably running extra drip irrigation cycles. Normally it runs every 3-4 days in the summer. Lows in the winter are usually 26 F a couple of nights. Last few days have had highs of 87-89, lows of 55. Soil I believe is sandy clay loam.

Edit: pic

Mine took years to get established, but are in full sun all day without issues this year. I'm somewhat inland, hotter than on the bay. They're about 5 ft tall, from bare root planted in-ground in 2018 I believe. I planted 6 but 2 died. Not growing fast yet, probably have doubled in height in 4 growing seasons. If I had to do it over again I'd direct-sow seeds. I bet I'd have bigger trees by now. I used shade cloth for a year or more, don't remember how long.  I actually had my drip irrigation get shut off for a month this summer before I noticed. I'd been giving the pawpaws a little supplemental water, but not much. They didn't even look bad.

I think 3 of the 4 have flowered, the biggest ones. One has set fruit two years in a row, but dropped them after a few weeks. They set fine without hand pollination.

I don't understand the flowering cycle for them. Mine are covered in flower buds now, which probably won't push/open until spring, but they're still fully leafed-out, and haven't seen chill hours in months AFAIK. I think I had one open a flower in August once.

They look like they might push new leaves now, leaf buds are swollen, but I think they'll wait for spring. I only get a few pushes/flushes a year, in the spring. Mexican katydids eat holes in the young leaves as they emerge, but aside from that they're doing well.

I get similar damage on a lot of plants from Mexican Katydids. I just manually remove them. They're hard to spot but I kill maybe ten per year, kill the adults when I spot them at night on the windows attracted to the light. I think the damage is usually from juveniles, and that they are active during the day.

https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/141511-Amorphophallus-paeoniifolius/browse_photos

https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/180327-Dracontium/browse_photos

Looks more like #2 to me, but #1 seems more common.

That first Arbutus is probably Arbutus 'Marina'. Unedo doesn't have red peeling bark. Could be a native madrone, but they're rare in urban/cultivated areas.

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Jatropha integerrima?

#1 Garcinia sp.
#2 Spondias sp.

Most of mine improved with saucers. Yellow in particular seems to love water. I do let the saucers dry out between waterings.

Frangula caroliniana or Frangula alnus?

Thanks for the offer Kaz, but I need to stop collecting plants that get big. I got the cutting from achetadomestica, so I feel pretty confident it's White Shatoot. I didn't label well, so a mixup is possible, but I really don't think so. I didn't get mulberries from anyone else. He told me his tree was a rooted cutting, but that all his rooting attempts failed. I rooted it in a pot with a sandy soil mix. I read something about rooting M. nigra, that it's very difficult, but the Persians have a technique where they root it in sand or a sandy mix at a certain time of the year, in winter I think.

The tree has an upright growth habit, mostly lobed leaves (some with 5 or more), distinctive orange cambium, and is a slow grower. It fruited very lightly this year, first year fruiting. Lots of seeds in the fruit. It will be interesting to see what the fruits are like next year. When they started coming in not elongated I thought it was a mislabeled Tice or something, but they ripened white.

I've decided my Thai Dwarf tastes very similar to a VdB fig. When really ripe it has that figgy flavor. Have you tried letting yours continue to ripen?

Candlenuts?