My two cents say the plant is not likely to recover. I would not toss it quite yet but I would order another. Try Lycheesonline or PineIsland Nurseries. Their plants are air-layered and much larger than 9 inches. I believe you will have a better chance with a larger plant.

Receiving new plants like this in our "out of zone" climates require some extra preparations. This plant is coming from a very warm, sunny, humid environment into a cool, not so sunny, dry environment. Add on the stress of shipping in a dark box and being tossed around for a few days, and you have an uphill climb right from the start.

My advice, if you are going to continue to acquire rare tropical fruit trees, would be to setup one of those plastic covered, patio 4-tiered greenhouses. They are pretty inexpensive. Then purchase a small ultrasonic humidifier. Put your newly arrived plant in this structure for a week or more with high humidity...at least during the day time...and you are almost guaranteed success. Leave the plant in the container it arrived in until you are sure the plant is healthy and surviving. These plants also require as much sun as they can get. I would shade the new arrived plant for a few days or so at first. It's a challange. Good luck.

I second Jay's suggestion. New airlayers are touchy as it is, so your plant most likely will not make it. But keep it around, you never know, it may recover.

Ok. Thanks for the help ohiojay.

Well, I was pleased to see that there was the "tiniest" bud on the Lychee so maybe it'll recover. I'll try to take a pic of it. My other tropicals are Sapodilla (Alano), White Sapote (Suebelle), and Yellow Jaboticaba (Cabeluda). They all are doing fine. I find the white sapote not too much of a showpiece. The lychee is (or was). Also have a pineapple guava (Nazemetz) it died back to the ground but is budding back.

Lychee is indeed a challenge.

Sounds good. They can surprise you.

ohio jay you grow tropicals in zone 6.if you have a green house I hope you dont mind explaining the setup.

What exactly would you like to know...setup of plants or setup of the greenhouse technical aspects? That way Stressbaby can join in as well. He has a kicking greenhouse as well in our zone.

i would like to know about both,because i will probably be moving to a bigger house and will try to build an attached greenhouse.yours sounds like its been successful with yours.what have you fruited in there and whats your bigget fruit tree?
thanks

Hmmm...well first off, here is a link to my photobucket album. You should be able to look at all the pics. http://s23.photobucket.com/albums/b358/ohiojay/

The bananas are hands down, no pun intended, the largest plants in the greenhouse and take up the most room. My jakfruit is catching up. My nanas are fruiting, miracle fruit, muntingia, wax jambu, citrus, mango, sugar apples, tamarind bloomed but did not fruit, small quava sent out one bloom but did not fruit, sapodilla blooms but no fruit yet.

It sounds like you are passionate about the hobby or fast becoming so. My only advice on the greenhouse would be to build as big as you can afford...if not bigger. Height is important. Protection from our winter weather is very high up there as well and was one of my main considerations for building the type of structure that I did. I built this myself and saved a lot of money doing so. Was it worth it? That's up for debate. That's pretty much an entire summer and fall that I won't get back...and I mean nearly every spare minute went into the construction. It really sucked. I had the professional installer for the company stop by one day to help me get thru a very confusing portion. Him and his partner would have completed my greenhouse in about 1 week. But 26 years of building these things helps!

I have a Bartlett Instruments greenhouse controller that monitors temp and humidity. I have one motorized window that opens when the temp hits a target number. Then if temps continue to rise, there are two motorized vents in the ceiling that opens one then the other if needed. If this is not enough, and the temp continues to go up, my fogging system kicks on...a sure way of dropping the temps. I have the humidity set anywhere from 70-85% depending upon the time of year. When this falls below the set point, the fogging system kicks on until the humidity set point is hit. It gets a workout during the summer if it is real dry out. But it's necessary for the types of plants I've chosen to grow.

My structure has double pane, insulated glass. It stops most of the UV rays and allows a vast majority of natural light thru. Yeah, it gets hot but even during our really hot days, the temp never got much above what it was outside. During the winter, even when it is butt-numbing cold out and the sun is shining, it will heat up to 80+. Speaking of glass, I have windows all around and two glass vents on top that can be opened manually. The structure is pretty tight and does well holding in the heat during winter...but it is still glass no matter how insulated it is...and you will lose heat.

During the winter I have two 30K vent-free blueflame heaters. They both have indipendant thermostats. One unfortunate biproduct of my structure being so tight is that a couple of windows will need to be left cracked open to allow the heaters to operate properly. Humidity really builds up in the winter with the structure closed up and the gas heaters going. Gives the fogger a break!

I opted to go with a gravel floor. That way I can move gravel if I want to plant something into the ground... which I have. I can also spray the hose or whatever and not worry about a floor and didn't have to worry about putting drains in during the construction.

I like the fact that we attached the structure to our home. We didn't have a lot of choice since I didn't want a greenhouse to take up all of my backyard and I couldn't glass in the entire backyard like I want to! Saves on cost. One less side of glass that needed to be purchased. Plus the house is a great insulator on that side at least.

If you have any other questions or need anything else, please let me know. I made a lot of mistakes doing this and there's no reason for anyone to make the same ones I did. Just plan plan plan and then plan some more. Electric? Put it everywhere even if you don't think you need it. Water, gas. Don't forget looks. You don't want an eyesore hanging off the back of your home. J

wow!!..this really answered all the basics and then some.i will probably make some blu prints and also see were all the gas and electric will go.and if everythig goes well i might have it done in a year.i will save this.
thanks,and also i have been in the tropical fruit hobby for awhile but want to step it up to the big leagues.

We're all hear to corrupt...I mean support!

I want to help corrupt/support!

I grow most of what J has, we kind of enable each other. I have bananas, 3 kinds of guava, dragonfruit, jaboticaba, passionfruit, mango, lychee, muntingia, pitomba, pitanga, was jambu, several citrus, tamarind, and a slew of ornamental tropicals. Some have fruited, many have not yielded fruit, but I am a patient man!

I have a freestanding tempered glass single pane 20x23 which I heat with 2 24K vented propane heaters and supplement with a couple of cheapo 1500W electrics. I add a layer of plastic in the winter. It sounds like you are headed more toward what J has, it is a really nice GH, he really did a nice job.

When you are up and running, let us know, you might find a little GH-warming gift in the mail!

SB

Please guys could you tell me as to where can i procure a good matured sapling of lychee plant? Is there any nursery from where i could pickup close to Bombay/Goa. I also need a mature sapling of Avacado (butter fruit) and thenew vaiety of Annona-1 (large sitaphal weighing from 300 gms to 2 kgs)?

Many thanks

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