Terminalia catappa - Indian Almond

[Madridje]

Anyone have experience growing this tree?

Any leads also as to where I can purchase from a reliable/reputable source?

[kapps]

Experience in Florida, yes. I bought some seeds on Etsy from India 6 or 7 years ago. The tree is fast growing, deciduous, and doesn’t like it below freezing. The top froze off when we hit 32 degrees several years ago. It also doesn’t handle hurricane winds very well and lost its top again when we had a close call. It is a beautiful shade tree though.

[Satya]

kapps, you ordered seeds from India? It’s growing all over South Florida, in every park and by many roads, very common and actually considered invasive with seeds propagated by squirrels. Wood is extremely fragile as in most fast growing trees, and breaks easily even in winds, not to mention hurricanes. Grows very fast, in one season several meters so needs constant pruning to avoid breakage. Nuts are very small and hard to get out of shell if you are not a squirrel... I was never able to taste the nut, the skin is too unpleasant to deal with. Not worth growing as a nut tree in my opinion. I would rather plant a walnut tree if i had a choice between the two, or an actual almond. Or for similar foliage (if planting as a shade tree) a native (for FL) sea grape that also grows fast but is less fragile and has nice edible berries.

[Madridje]

Thanks you guys for the feedback.

Was considering to grow it, based on what kappss mentioned, they don’t tolerate the cold well.

Would still wanna give em a shot just for the foliage and change from green outter skin to red.

For walnut, not sure about growing it in my backyard since those can get really large