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lycheeluva

my south florida fantasy

lycheeluva
13 years ago

when I am not thinking about jessica alba or winning the mega millions (combined this takes up 50% of my time), I enjoy to have a good old fantasy about the orchard I will have when I retire to florida. To indulge myself, and in case any of you have any interest, here is the list of tres I will be growing.

(will have a greenhouse for the mangosteen and pulsan)

Harry please let me know how many acres I will need to plant these trees in good space with enough room to double my collection.

lychee mauritius x3

lychee brewster

lychee sweet cliff x2

lychee sweetheart

lychee garnet

lychee early pink

lychee empereror

lychee kaimana

(any other vairty that I come across

banana cavendish

banana 2 other varieties

canistel bruce

surinam cherry (harry's variety)

marang (juan's variety = 1 other variety

pulsan (from juan's tree) x 3

jackfruit (more for coolness than for eating)

mango (ten varieties)

orange navel 3 varieties to extend season

tangerine, kishu

tangerine 2 other cool varities

Lemon - store variety + 1 other

lime

grapefruit

fig 5 varities

pommegrante 3 varities to include wonderful

avocado 3 varities

mangosteen x5

pineapple 3 varities

passionfruit

white sapote

date medjool

cola nut (just for coolness sakes)

jaboticaba 5 varities

little orange garcinias

watermelon and various other melons patch

blueberries x4 varities

strawberries 5 varities

grapes 6 varities

kiwi 4 varieites

apple, peach, nectarine and cherry- carites tat can be grown in s florida (if they exist)

guava

so far, I have not been particulalrly impressed with cherimoya- too seedy and not that great flavor but would be willing to try a handful of the best custard apple varieties.

what am i forgetting?

Comments (31)

  • red_sea_me
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Plus someone to maintain it all for you.

    -E

    ps, I like this fantasy better than some of your other ones. :)

  • lycheeluva
    Original Author
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    plan on maintaining it myself. thats how i will get my exercise- labor of love.

  • mango_kush
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    really you could have all of this on a half acre and still have room to live, I have my growlist on under a 1/4 acre. fruitscaping a small dooryard is fun

    Going bananas nursery basically has a lychee grove, they prune their trees under 5 feet after every harvest season. they are spaced 15 feet apart in rows.

    If you have more room like Harry you can let them grow larger but they need room. they will not produce fruit where they are shaded so do not make good hedges like jackfruit.

    my lychee trees are 10 feet apart and they are being pruned small, so they are in the center of my yard. along the borders in rows are the jackfruit and mangos. bananas make nice tropical foliage so I plant them around the borders, even though they get tall, I dont mind them too close to the house.

    grapes forget about, muscadine are horrible. California or imported supermarket is far superior.
    Kiwis are not sub tropical really, they need chill.
    you forgot dragonfruit and passionfruit.
    A good anona is hard to beat, there are alot of inferior ones in the market though.

    cheena chempendakXjackfruit

    Kwai muk

    Bangkok lemon jackfruit with a staghorn fern im trying to attach

    the bangkok lemon jackfruit is in the middle, to the right is the cheena and to the left its hard to make out the small kwai muk with the tomato cage around it. they are all in a row about 12 feet apart

    was drizzly this morning

    my four edible gingers bouncing back after the cold snap
    lesser galangal, ginger, turmeric, green cardamon

    jaboticaba, which i think has a mineral deficiency


    lisa atemoya new growth, mixed varieties of pineapple bed in the background

    left hedge spaced 12 feet apart, nam doc mai, tong dam, po pyu kalay, chouanon, okrung tong, carrie, theres still room along the back property line for dot and cushman on order from zill. the dwarf mangos like ice cream, mallika, and julie are planted in interior spaces. on the right along the house are my bananas, they should fill in this spring.

    pineapple "cheesepine"

    musa balbisiana "black thai"

    cattle fence arbors

    giant granadilla passionfruit

  • mangodog
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    MK - love that little umbrella shaped growth in that "drizzly this morning" picture...

    Thanks for the pics - any way to pull back and show the whole yard - say from the back door of the house? Maybe 2-3 pics, left to right?

    mangowoofwoof

  • mango_kush
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    started raining, more pics to come.

  • jfernandez
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Mango kush

    Great pics! your jackfruit are awesome...how many mangos do you have? You got any mamoncillos, Mamey or Chico?

  • zands
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    MKush
    I see half your mangoes are IndoChinese. Is this due to anthracnose?

  • mango_kush
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    thai pink lessard sugar apple scorched by the cold


    black malay apple in the front and biriba in back of it that were scorched by the cold but still alive. also my guanabana is just to the right of the biriba out of shot

    the large tree is my rainbow eucalyptus, i still need to build a fence around the front yard, im parking the cars on the swale and going to use the space where the driveway is now for more stuff

    sausage tree on the swale

    rainbow eucalyptus

    back yard, jackfruit, bananas

    sweetheart lychee, groff to the right of that, brewster is in between the two red stones

    still re-potting my citrus

    alano Sapodilla to the right in front of the shed

    dragonfruit in back of the shed

    red passionfruit, praying hands and saba bananas behind the other side of the shed

  • red_sea_me
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Wow Purple Kush,
    your yard is going to be a serious jungle when it fills in and the best part is it is almost all edible. Cant believe how fast your rainbow euc is growing, love those things.

    thanks for posting,
    -Ethan

  • mango_kush
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    zands I have 5 indo chinese varieties. I read an article about Thailand mangos that stated nam doc mai, tong dam and okrung are the three most popular Thai mangos because they have consecutive seasons. chouanon was said to be an "off" bearer here so I planted one out too, and po pyu kalay i bought immediately after eating one at a nursery and never really questioned that judgment, those are the first five lined up in the front yard

    my 4 florida cultivars are around the patio and shed, Rosigold is the first bloomer, Carrie my favorite, Cushman probably my second favorite and Dot, which i read and heard enough about from Harry and Frank Smathers to add.

    my two dwarf Carribean cultivars, Julie and Ice cream, Julie is excellent and Ice cream is different.

    and my three Indian varieties are along the back of my property, Alphonso and Alampur Baneshan Ive never tried but they are both completely different Indian varieties and Mallika which I enjoy very much.

    only the dwarfs are planted in the interior of my yard, mallika, julie, ice cream and rosigold, all the rest are around the property line. Ive been kinda OCD with keeping my fruit trees categorized by location in my yard, lol

  • lycheeluva
    Original Author
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    nice jobb hijacking my post mk.

  • stressbaby
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Wow.

    I was scrolling down thinking this is the biggest threadjacking I've ever seen!

    I will ask if the "cheena chempendakXjackfruit" is the same as the 51 pounder we found in PR at Brian's. Is it?

    LL, your list is great, but reflects a serious lychee bias. "Mango (ten varieties)." You can do better than that! ;-)

  • zands
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Thanks MangoK for the list and planting strategy for your mangoes. But If you have a mango hedge...Aren't the branches going to reach over into your neighbor's yard?

  • franktank232
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I'd like to get a big barge...an acre plus in size and drop anchor in the middle of Lake Okeechobee ... I'd have all the water i need and would escape all frost :) Fill the barge up with soil and plant away.

    No property taxes and water front property.

  • mango_kush
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    anytime

  • lycheeluva
    Original Author
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    nice idea on the barge but def not for me.
    SB of course my list reflects lychee bias!
    And yeh, you are right, ten mango varities is pretty poor for,. I hereby revise that to 15.

  • jsvand5
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Sounds pretty sweet. You should forget about waiting for retirement and get a job down here. I think there are still a couple jobs left in FL.

    My only comments on your list would be to dump pretty much all of the citrus. You can get pretty much all of those varieties at farmers markets down here for very little money. Citrus is just not worth the space IMO. I used to have a bunch but all I keep now is a pomello, a few Page, and and a few ponkan. Everything else I just buy. I am also not sure if you can get the Kishu mandarin trees here. I looked for a while, but I don't know if they were ever imported to FL.

    Also, you'll need a GH for a few of the other things. For me at least, Mangosteen has been a money pit with no hope of success. I have not totally given up on pulasan but I have not been able to ever get a healthy tree in to start with.

  • hmhausman
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Let's see...how many more years until you expect to retire, Gerry? If you are willing to wait long enough,by then I may have gone to that great fruit orchard in the sky and my wife would be thrilled to sell you my property. My collection will need some fine tuning to meet your specific wishes, but most eveything is already here and going.

    Harry

  • abayomi
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Mango kush and I agree on a lot but muscadine grapes we definitely disagree with (unless that was a joke about their taste). They are divine!

  • mango_kush
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I cant get over there tough skin. lowes here sells both varieties for $5 each in 1 gallons.

  • lycheeluva
    Original Author
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    harry, funny you should post that because i would be lying if i said the thought didnt enter my mind for a tiny second!!!!!!!!!!
    first thing i would do is get rid of those dragon fruit- tastless fruit if i ever tried one( not yours sepcifcally which i have never tasted but the fruit in general). your star fruit would probably follow pretty soon after!

  • mango_kush
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    havent tasted one i didnt like. the magenta flesh ones are fantastic
    {{gwi:1304482}}

  • trianglejohn
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I enjoy the cherimoyas that make it up to Raleigh supermarkets but they taste nothing like what I ate while visiting friends in Colombia, South America. There they were like a ripe mango drizzled with caramel sauce - totally worth the effort.

    I'm operating under the assumption that some fruits will just taste better if I grow them myself - so I have a lot of your list growing as bushes in pots and someday will build a large greenhouse to grow them into trees in.

    Keep in mind that new varieties and hybrids get developed every day so you need some space for the new and improved!

  • franktank232
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I wonder if a Mangosteen would do ok in Key West?? How about over in the Bahamas, say in Nassau? Doesn't seem to be a lot of tropical fruit grown in the Bahamas...must be due to how dry it is? I know when i was in Great Stirrup Key (Berry Islands) on a cruise, when i walked around the island it was mostly scrub...also didn't seem to be much in the way of soil.

  • mango_kush
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Bahamas would probably present similar problems for mangosteen as parts of Florida where Whitman grew his.

    Key West is right on the tropic of cancer, where the tropics officially begin, growing one there would definitely be easier, but not effortless. the sandy soil would still need to be extracted and replaced

  • franktank232
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    How about the Yucatan down in Mexico? I've been to Cancun and around that area? I know they get "cold" in the winter, but usually no worse then mid 40F's (at least in Cancun)... Cozumel is always warmer (surrounded by 80F+ water)... Although if i remember, its really scrubby down there too...

    Do they grow Mangosteen in Cuba??

  • abayomi
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    the yellow df are divine. (don't eat too may though!) the others are thirst quenching dreams. all have their place in my digestive system

    As for muscadine skins, they allow for a burst of jelly with each grape. lovely.

  • mango_kush
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    frank, Im pretty sure they could grow them there if they dont, they grow in Puerto Rico. they dont like the sandy soil, salt spray or salt in the soil. Puerto Rico has some higher elevation regions that dont suffer from this.

  • norm52
    12 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Hello ,
    Read that someone might have yellow Jaboticaba seed and wonder If you would consider parting with a few seeds
    Ursula
    culejools@yahoo.ca

  • bananafan
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Mango kush,

    Interesting collection of tropical fruit trees of your yard. It's amazing how many trees you can pack into there. I have a double lot here and I'm also packing in as many as I can get my hands on. Some of them have really outgrown the space I've allotted them. I had to remove my banana Saba a few years back because it was getting so huge and getting rid of the dead plant was a heavy chore. My praying hands have spread out a lot since planting them many years back. Some of my bananas in fact have migrated to my neighbors' yards. They gladly accept the new migrants and we'll see how they multiply over the other side of their fences.

    Anyway, it would be nice to know how your fruit trees are doing. I see this thread was 2 years old, so maybe your trees have grown a lot since and have started to bear some fruit for you. Do you have any more pictures to update?

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