Here in Hawaii all my lychee trees are already setting small fruit, the Libyans are just flowering, avocado is already setting fruit, and the mangos are already getting ripe.

bananafan where do you have your trees? I am in Miami and my lychee Sweet-heart is just flushing, so no fruits this year. It is a very young tree (2 years) and I hope the lack of flowers is due to its young age. Cannot wait for it to set fruits.

Congrats Banana...I'm happy to hear your Lychee trees are all blooming, Wow! lucky you having 5 of them! I have only one tree (planted 2 years ago) and its starting to bloom now also.

I had two young beautiful trees die from the 2009/2010 "freeze" :o(...I was so sad to lose them. I had to try one more time so far so good, thanks to a pretty mild winter so far.

Here's my lychee taken today...of course we still have about 5 weeks or so of winter left so I hope these blooms make it.

Please post pictures of yours...

Hawaiifruitgrower,

I'm glad to hear that all your lychees are fruiting. You have a wonderful climate there for growing tropical trees, although lychees are more of a subtropical plant. Do you have pictures to show your trees? Also, are you planting for commercial purposes?

Comprotutto,

I'm glad that your young lychee is flushing now. If you're into planting tropical fruit trees, Miami is the place :) I'm in the bay area and sometimes the Winter here is rather unforgiving. Only a day of two of freeze will knock out some sensitive tropical plants. My oldest lychee which was bought in 2007 is a Mauritius and it must have been 1-2 years old when I got it. So, this means it's about 7-8 years old now. It's been in the ground for six years. Most of the crown was damaged a couple of years ago, so it had to start all over again. However, we have plans for a greenhouse soon. Hopefully, I'll be about to keep some tropical plants alive there, but as for the lychees .. five of them are now in the ground, only one in the pot ... so we'll have to see what happens.

Hi puglvrl,

Thank you for the nice picture of your lychee. What kind of lychee is it? It sure looks beautiful for a plant that was planted two years ago. I'm sorry to hear that your two lychees didn't make it. I remember seeing the pictures of your plants before and they looked gorgeous. It must have been hard to see them gone.

I sure would like to post more pix. My computer was hit by a very bad virus some time back and it destroyed many of the files in my old computer. I spent a lot of time cleaning up the mess, but mainly trying to retrieve all the important data and files that were left in the aftermath. I have been careful with visiting sites now. At first, I thought it was this site, but then I finally thought it could be the site I uploaded my pix. I'm now looking at photonet and hope it's safe to use, but if you or anyone else here knows of any that is safe, would appreciate your recommendations.

Hopefully I get to post my pics it's been raining a lot here so we will see! But in the other hand no I so not plant for commercial purposes just for fun I have a lot about 10 lychee 2 longan 4 rambutan 3 pulasan 6 avocado 4 mango 2 abiu 1 white sapote and black sapote 4 jaboticaba some different cherries like Brazilian acerola rio grande, my trees are old about 10 yrs old and producing heavely now!!

Hi banana...So sorry to hear about your computer problems...I hope you were able to retrieve most of the important files and pictures from your old one.

I personally have used Photobucket for several years now...but I'm sure there are many others out there that you can use as well.

Here's a picture of my Mauritius lychee...I think the reason the tree has done SO well in the 2 years I've had it is due to me giving them a "wind shelter" and the 2 years of mild winter certainly has helped a LOT. I hope we have a few more mild winters to give my tree a good chance to mature. So far I've only had 2 mornings of frost/light freeze and I did not have any damages by it...

Ok, here are the pictures of my lychees including some kind of lychee bug which I discovered today on one of the pinnacles on my Mauritius. There aren't many yet, but I'd like to know what they are and what I can use to eradicate them. The leaves on my Sweetheart1 which is the largest plant measuring 12 ft tall look kind of yellowish. Is there anything I could use to make it look more healthy, or does it matter?

Puglvr1, your Mauritius looks very robust and healthy for a young plant. Do you have problems with bugs? For me, it's those bugs that finally wiped out all the blooms.

Hawaiifruitgrower, it's wonderful you're growing so many nice tropical fruits. Has any of your Rambutans been able to bear fruit for you yet? Are they mature trees now? I got two Rambutans and planted them in the pot, but they look half dead now with all the leaves all dropped off.

P.S. I just noticed that gardenweb can now do the uploading of pictures without going through another site .. but only 1 image at a time. I'll have to figure out how to do the rest.

Picture of Hak Ip. It's been two years in the ground and it seems to be rather strong. I got a couple of fruit from it in the last year. The low fruit production is again the bug problem. I sprayed solution made from Castille soap, but apparently lychees are very sensitive plant and all the blooms dried off.

Mauritius planted in the ground--must have been 4 years now. It was damaged a couple of years ago and took off again to it's original size before the freeze.

This is Brewster is in the ground close to 4 years already. It was small enough for me to cover it during the freeze and it survived with not much damage. It's older than my Hak Ip, but it has been slow to bloom, but this year it's doing a lot better.

Sweetheart has been planted for about 3-4 years now. It's a fast growing plant, but slow to bloom too. This year, it's showing a little more blooms, but the leaves as you can see aren't as healthy looking. It must have been about 12 ft tall now and the branches look straggly.

This Sweetheart one of the youngest and has been in the ground for 2-3 years. It's growth has been slow because it's planted near the fence line and under an Oak tree, so it doesn't get as much sun.

That's the lychee bug I discovered today. My camera isn't sharp enough to capture all the details, but hope you all can make out what it is.

Beautiful lychee trees banana!! Looks like they're all doing very well and growing very nicely for you. I sure hope you see some fruits this summer.

As for the bugs, I'm been extremely lucky I've not had any thing attack my blooms yet...I hope that continues. I've had scale on my Mango trees but so far they've left my lychee tree alone.

I'm not positive as its hard to tell from your picture but its possible that what you have is some type of "weevils", possibly "sri lankan weevils"? I belong to another tropical fruit forum and they've posted pictures of what "might" be the same bug that you have? I've seen damages that these bugs are capable of...mainly chewing a LOT of leaves. As far as I know killing them individually as they see them have been the best method. Spraying anything on the blooms now would cause your blooms to "die off" so I wouldn't spray anything stronger than water on them.

I am by NO means an expert...but try googling "weevils" and see if that is what you have. Good luck!

As far as the yellowing leaves...I fertilize my Lychee tree once a month or every 2 months with a "slow release" fertilizer. I use abut 1/2 the recommended dosage so it does not burn the roots and leaves. I don't fertilize between October and February and will start again in March...but only a "little bit" because they are blooming just to give the tree a little nourishment to help the blooms along. Maybe 1/4 of what I normally give them.

Thanks for the pictures...you have a very nice lychee collection!

Here is a link that might be useful: Weevils...

Thanks Puglvr1 for the info and the link on the weevil. I feel a lot less "anxious" when I know what is bothering my poor lychees. I back tracked a little on the past postings and came across this thread that has a lot of interesting discussions about Lychees. I think one of them mentioned that the weevils are around a lot where there are citrus fruit trees (unfortunately I have planted quite many of them already). However, they don't merely bother their fruit production as much as they do when when they attack Mangos or Lychees.

I will soon google weevil to find out more. By the way, does weevil attack leave behind sticky stuff? One more funny thing, after I posted that picture of the bug, it took off. It's somewhere inside my house ... good thing it didn't escape into the yard, but I'm sure I can expect a lot more hiding somewhere getting ready to attack all my poor plants.

In any case, here's the link to the thread I mentioned above.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tropicalfruits/msg0715233316655.html?40

Thanks for the link...I had almost forgotten that post. It has a lot of good information on there.

I wish you luck with those "weevils" if in fact that is what you have on your lychee trees?

Here is a link that might be useful: Lychee link...

Thanks puglvr2 for the link. I've done a little more reading on lychee pests. I also suspect my lychee trees might have been infected with webworm which is a kind of a moth. I have seen web wrapping around the blooms/fruit on the pinnacles and often they also leave behind some kind of sticky substance. At the moment, I don't have a lot yet, but I will be watching out for them. I think your idea of catching them may help. So far, I've tried pinching off the part that is being infected. Hopefully, I don't damage the rest of the blooms.

Here is a link that might be useful: Litchi pests

Sorry to hear that you might have webworms :o(...one of the drawbacks in living in FL. I always call it one of the "bug" capitols of the world,lol...unfortunately, it comes with the territory. Hopefully, the rest of the blooms will survive.

We're getting a cold snap here this weekend, Since we both live in zone 9b I wanted to mention it in case you didn't see it...I will have to keep an eye on the weather closely. Central and North being the coldest. Its too early to pin point just exactly how cold it will be...I'm hoping it won't be colder than 34 degrees!! Keeping fingers crossed!

Yesterday, my husband helped me moved out my Soursop, Rambutans, some cold sensitive bananas and Mangos from the shed as it was such a warm day. Just when we thought that Summer is here, we're going back to some cold Winter spell this weekend. I never thought to look at the forecast since we've been having so many nice warm days ... Anyway, I agree that living here in Florida, we cannot be overly enthusiastic and let our guards down :) I do really appreciate for the heads up, Puglvr1. It would have been a disasater if I hadn't known it ahead of time. Well, I'll have to sheepishly ask my husband for his help again. Unfortunately all of these plants will definitely suffer damage if they're left out in the 40's. Maybe the Mangos might take the beat up for a while, but not the others. My Soursop is beginning to show signs of growth and my Rambutan too.

I'm saddened to hear that the webworm is territorial ... Things really didn't look quite bright each year when I see the blooms dying off ..., but I'm just counting on one thing .. This year, I have a lot more blooms on all my plants. Hopefully, some fruit will stay. Last year, I was only able to get a couple of fruit of my Hak Ip. Back to the cold snap, I don't know what will happen to my Lychees. Should I try to cover them now that they are covered with blooms? I can possibly cover the three smaller ones, but the other two larger ones, I'll just have to let them go. I will try to wrap a foam around the trunks and put some Christmas lights around the base if necessary.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for both of us that the forecast lows won't be so bad...at least I'm really hoping!

As far as covering anything...I'm going to take a long hard breath and will HOPE for the best. I am NOT planning on covering anything. I'm afraid that if I cover the Lychee blooms...they "might" be worse if I don't cover them. Especially since every time I cover anything the tips or parts of the branch that touches the leaves and or blooms always "freeze" worst if I hadn't cover it. The only way it would work is "if" your Covers do NOT touch any of the blooms...but I do not have anything Large or Wide enough to reach all the way up and make it to cover all the way down.so in light of that I will let nature take its course and really hope for the best.

On a side note...I've had 2 nights of "frost" already a few days before Christmas and I hit 30 and 31 degrees for a couple of hours in the early morning and I had NO damage at all...of course my trees weren't blooming yet at that time...but No damage to the trees. I'm hoping for the same scenario...if I lose the blooms on my lychee I will be okay with it as long as the tree itself makes it since its still a young tree...

Good luck! I'll keep you posted and let you know how I fare come Monday after the cold weather...

I went out to check on my lychee blooms and was happy to see them smiling back at me, as if saying, "We're ok and we have weathered through the cold snap." I'm glad I didn't try to cover them, so thanks again for your suggestion, Puglvr. Another good news is that the bees and ants are all so busy pollinating. Here's a picture of my Hak Yip. For the past years, it has always been the earliest to bloom. Mauritius is still very slow in flowering.

Hi Bananafan...I'm so happy to hear that your lychee blooms are doing great!

I did hit 32 degrees for about an hour and a half Monday morning...but luckily it wasn't continuous...it went up and down above freezing off and on so it kept the worst part of it at bay. The lychee blooms seems okay so far...but still haven't opened yet...just barely starting to open. I'll see if any damage was done in a few days?

I'll update once the blooms open...

I'm glad we made it through this cold snap and I sure hope this is the LAST one this year!!

Banana, just a heads up...I think we have another cold front coming in around Friday or Saturday...so keep an eye on the weather forecast this coming weekend. Keeping fingers crossed it won't be bad!!

Another cold snap? ... oh no. I just got my Jackfruit and Rambutan out thinking it's all Summer now ... Yes, Puglvr, I do really hope this one will be a very mild one. The last time wasn't bad, but I was just glad that my super sensitive plants got shipped back to the shed. My daughter said maybe the cold snap is good for the lychees because it can kill the web worm. I don't know if this will be the case or not. So far, I haven't spotted any web worm yet. I have seen some tiny caterpillas around. I don't know a lot about web worm yet. Will have to read more about it.

I have a 7-8 ft coconut seedling ready to plant and still looking for a location to do so. Maybe, I'll do so after the real confirmation that Spring is here.

Anyway, thanks again, Puglvr for the heads up. Greatly appreciate your help. I will post more later, but I'm afraid I have to do some reshuffling again this coming weekend.

You're welcome bananafan...Good luck to us!! Keeping fingers crossed we survive this one with NO damage...

We'll get a better idea of the forecast by the end of the week...it will be a roller coaster for the next few days I'm sure.

Here are more updates on my five lychee trees. This 15 ft tall Sweetheart here is doing well and I would say the only one out of my five that seems most promising. Most of the blooms are now open and there some tiny fruit developing. I wish many more fruit will be form, but I'm happy with what I have now if they will stay put.

Looking great banana!! I think you will see some delicious fruits this summer!!

This in my first bloom season for my "sweetheart" lychee. It has "finally" erupted in bloom and little fruits. My Moricius is in the ground ~3 years and is much smaller and as yet has not bloomed.

The Sweetheart is several years older and I received it in a pot, I think it was stunted because of it. I can't wait to get the fruit. Anyone else in South Florida have Lychees that are blooming?

Congrats Gnappi!

My Mauritius is planted in the ground 2 years ago and is actually blooming with a few very small fruits also. I'm pretty sure the reason my very young tree bloomed is because I have more Chill hours than you do being in zone 9a/9b.

We've had many mornings in the 30's and 40's this winter :o(

Gnappi,

I'm glad to hear that your Sweetheart is bearing fruit for you. I read somewhere that Sweetheart is a shy producer. Now I don't know if that is true as my Sweetheart this year seems to be developing more fruit than the others at the moment. Of course, it also might because it's the biggest of all my lychee trees ... standing at a height of approx 16-18 ft. However, I must say though that when it was smaller, no fruit showed up except for the first year when I bought it. It must have been 2-3 years old when I first got it. It's been in the ground for 2-3 years, so I'm guessing it must have been a 6 years old plant by now.

Do post more pictures of your Sweetheart as the fruit develop. I will post more pix of mine later also.

Hi puglvr,

I'm glad to hear that your Mauritius is able to develop some fruit for you. Mine didn't not bloom this year. I wonder if it's because it was damaged by the cold a couple of years ago. It went from 12-14 ft to 2-3 ft as most of the top all dried up. Although it's about 12-14 ft tall now, it still didn't bloom.

My Hak Ip which is about 8 ft tall now, has 17-18 pinnacles this year. Unfortunately, all of the blooms dried up and dropped off. Today, I looked at it closely. I could only find one tiny fruit intact.

Brewster and Sweetheart are doing better. They both have a lot of tiny fruit developing. This makes me wonder if a certain variety is a better fruit producer than the other ...., or is it the size of the plant that will determine if the tree will carry the fruit better. If I had to guess, I think the size of the tree matters, but then again, my Mauritius is also an older and larger tree now ..., but it isn't producing any fruit. So, another guess here is ... after a tree has been damaged by the cold, it will take them some years to establish themselves again for fruiting. Well, only time will tell.

Hi banana, Its strange that my young Mauritius is setting fruits while your mature one isn't...hmmm...they do have a mind of their own don't the,lol...

BTW, have you read this article from lycheesonline about when to prune them for the best chance of getting fruits? You probably already have but just in case here it is for your reading. I actually followed this to a "t" and I don't know if it is a coincidence or not but it seems to have worked,lol...I'm planning on doing it again the same time this summer...

I'm so sorry to hear about your Hak ip...I just purchased a very small one a few weeks ago and I'm planning on keeping it in a pot. Oh, I also found a "bargain" at a local nursery on a very "sad" looking brewster lychee in a 10 gallon pot that I rescued for $10,lol...couldn't pass it up. Almost 100% of the leaves have been chewed or damaged by some type of leaf chewing weevils...I treated the soil with a drench and sprayed the whole tree...hopefully it will recover in a few months...but for $10 for a nice size trunk I couldn't pass it up :o)

Good luck with the fruits that are on the tree, hopefully most will mature for you and I...

Link for lycheesonline is below...

Here's the Brewster for $10

Here is a link that might be useful: Tips on how to get lychee to fruit...

Here's my small Hak ip I bought 2 weeks ago...

Hi Puglvr,

Wow, that's one great deal on your Lychee Mauritius! It looks good on the picture with its straight stem and there are still lots of green leaves on it. I'm sure you'll take good care of it. It's also easier to clean it up when it's smaller.

Your Hak Ip looks great too. I can see it has some new flushes.

Thanks for sharing pictures of your new lychees. Great pictures. Hopefully they'll take off quickly when the hot weather finally comes ... It looks like the colder night temp is still lingering around even though officially it's now Spring :O(

Puglvr,

Thanks so much for the link on how to prune lychee. I'll certainly read it and hopefully learn more about how to do it more correctly.

However, what I don't understand is that after 3/4 of my Lychee Mauritius was damaged in the cold a couple of years back, I did a major trimming on it, only keeping the lower stem and a few healthy branches with it. Still, it did not bloom this year ... As for the rest of my lychee trees, I have never done any trimming on them except when they had broken branches. They all did bloom. So, I'm still a little puzzled .... and yes I do agree with you that lychees are temperamental. But, I also think that as they grow bigger, they'll also be more hardy and stable for fruit production without letting their blooms drop off so easily. That's just my speculation.

Anyways, with my lychees, I'm only taking one year at a time as I do not know when the next hard freeze will knock them out. So far, they've escaped two years of not so harsh winters and that has really given them a chance to grow bigger ...

My plan is to grow some in the pots ... just in case ... I'm thinking of getting an Emperor again. I killed one many years ago when I gave it fertilizer. I've since then learned the expensive lesson. Now I'm only giving them fish emulsion. By the way, when do you usually feed your lychees?

Thanks Banana...I certainly agree with you about Lychees being finicky" when it comes to blooms and fruit set...who knows why one variety one year won't bloom while others do? Very hard to figure out,lol...

The Mauritius I have inground when it did NOT have any blooms I fertilized it "lightly" once a month with 1/2 the recommended dosage of slow release fertilizer" like Dynamite or Osmocote...I've also used liquid fertilizer
(miracle grow and fish emulsion) also half strength in the summer months to give them a nice growth spurt. I never saw any ill effects from the light monthly feedings...they always say its better to feed the tree more often with less dosage than do it 2x a year with large amounts of fertilizer. Of course mine is only 2 years old...that's why I fed it monthly...but I stopped in late Sept. so it will go into dormancy in the fall and winter and hopefully encourage it to bloom...

Now that my tree has a few blooms/fruitlets, I only "sprinkle" a little fertilizer (slow release) on the drip line right before rain just to give it a small dose of nutrients to help the tree...being very careful not to give it too much. I also plan on giving it some Ironite once the fruits are done...maybe in late July. I heard they like Iron a couple of times a year...so I will give them another light dose of Iron late August first of Sept...and that will be it till next Spring.

I'm only planning on monthly fertilizing (except winter months) till the tree is about 3 years old then I will switch to 2 or 3 times a year...assuming it makes it to that age,lol...the tree should be concentrating on fruiting and shouldn't need as much fertilizer...at least that is my plan.

I totally understand what you are saying about growing these sensitive plants from year to year. That is also how I am growing my Mango and lychee trees...waiting for the next hard freeze "ax" to fall,lol...But you are right...the older more mature they get the hardier they become. I hope we get a few more years of milder winter to boost them up.

Below is another great link from lycheesonline...if you scroll down to #7 under "Fertilizing lychee trees"...that is where I got the great idea of fertilizing
"monthly" lightly...

Here is a link that might be useful: 8 Essential Factors for Growing Healthy Lychee Trees

This post was edited by puglvr1 on Sat, Mar 23, 13 at 11:57