Twas Real. Twas Fun. Twas Real Fun

Thanks to all that made it!

I took home two of the loquats. To the person who brought them, do they fruit for you at this latitude, or do you grow them for the evergreen leaves? Are they tolerant of wet ground?
My husband and I enjoyed the swap, thank you to everyone. Mike, the hydranga looks good.
Anna

Anna - I brought them. I have them in my yard mostly for their evergreen-ness. It would be nice to get more blossoms and maybe fruit but my two trees are not that big yet. I sowed those seeds from store bought fruit. My trees like to get watered but I don't think they like to stay wet (my yard drains pretty well). Long term Raleigh-ites have told me of long ago springs when the Loquats actually did make fruit but it seems to be a rare occurrence.

Mine bloomed last year but the fruit didn't stay put thru the freezes of the winter. the bloom n fall and the fruit is on all winter, so it's tough.

Did anyone get a pic of john in his bonnet? Cuz i'm really mad i didn't!!

I really hate that I missed it and that I missed seeing John in his Easter bonnet, lol. Must have been a hoot!

Ya'll are confused, that was no holiday bonnet, it was the regular straw hat I wear everyday out in the garden. Gotta attract those pollinators any way you can.

then i should be able to swing by any old time with a camera and catch it 'pollinating' on your head?
;^P

There are a ton of loquats growing on the USC campus here in Columbia and they fruit like crazy! I've got three that came from seedlings that sprouted underneath an old one beside the building I work in... I actually had about a dozen but only managed to hang onto the last three after friends/family laid eyes on them! :-\ They're about three years old now and I'm growing them in containers with some help from the folks over at the container gardening forum. Does anyone know how long it takes them to flower when they're grown from seed? These haven't, so far.

I've never seen it written what the requirements are but I have read where they can be a lot like citrus - which can take an extra long time to bloom and fruit when grown from seed. Some people claim that some trees have to have a certain number of branches with a certain number of nodes per branch, while other people claim that they have to be of advanced age to receive all the triggers that cause them to jump out of the juvenile stage and into the adult, blooming stage. All of this is why the commercial growers tend to grow from grafted cuttings rather than by seed.

I thought it might take some years before they reached the adult stage. I've got two crabapples that came from the Arbor Day Foundation that have never bloomed even thought they're over 5 years old. I asked the folks over at the tree forum about it and they told me the same thing... and that the Arbor Day Foundation grows the stock they sell/give away from seed. (Seems to me that they should disclose that!) I'll just enjoy the foliage until my trees grow up! ;-)

I think that under normal circumstances you should wait maybe 5 years, with the plants being over half adult size (however big the tree you got the seed from is). That seems to be how long it takes my seedlings to size up. But, I have held onto seedling trees for over 7 years with no blooming - I eventually gave them away and bought a blooming tree at the garden center. Sometimes things go in your favor and other times they don't. People have claimed that some seed grown citrus take over 20 years to get out of the juvenile stage.

Thanks for the information. I'm in zone 8, down in Duplin County, but I expect that our winters are too cold for loquat fruit. If I decide I don't have room in my yard for more ornamentals I'll bring them back to the fall swap. I thought we had a big yard when we moved here, but it hasn't taken me long to fill it.
Anna

LOL, Anna- That is the universal gardener's lament!