No,my Manila type ( Yellow) had flushed last in late August. I have seen ripe fruit on the Fremont Manila in January. So,its getting to where a winter picking of ripe Mangoes is possible I suppose. I think as long as the tree is old and large enough to produce,I wouldn't worry too much about late fruiting. You could always pick and ripen indoors in room temps. Still beats Supermarket produce.

Here in Australia the mango season is in full swing - by far the most popular variety is the mighty KP - (Kensington Pride) - but now there are so many new varieties all maturing at different times so we get to enjoy mangoes for months - great on the Christmas table. Cheers.

tropicalguy, send me some KP's :)

i am in New Orleans, and several of my seedlings are flushing new growth.

it must be in the mid 70s, or maybe almost 80F. (Nov 28)

but then i am also getting ripe figs still...

last year it was Jan 1 before i stripped the fruit off my fig trees, they had stopped ripening properly, and were just rotting... I just had a good fig today, so i am waiting a bit longer.

this is a seedling that froze to the ground last Jan, the first leaves popped up in June... all this growth is since then. (on right)

Would love to mate.

KP would be good for the bay area too- its said to be fast growing. That's whats needed here. Or any marginal climate.

KP's grow throughout tropical northern Australia - with other popular varieties being Calypso - R2E2's - and Honey Gold's - BUT I have to say KP's are probably the most popular favourite here in Oz.....cheers.

Any suggestions for purchasing mango tree online. I live in Fremont, CA. Also, has anyone grown alphonso successfully in the bay area. Thanks!

START A NEW THREAD ARUN !!

Have you seen the (Manila) Mango on Bruce Drive in Fremont? Or a vid on it on You Tube?

same as AR- want to grow an Alphonso. Any leads on getting a sapling will help

I asked a local nursery owner. He told me he'd just have to order it from Florida and then charge me $300 and that I'd be better ordering it directly myself. Top Tropicals is where I ordered from. For the health of the tree you'd want to pay for overnight shipping if you're a five day truck drive away from there--my tree took a real shock from that long in the darkness, but it survived.

I too love alphanso Mangoes... its so yum.... here we get in the month of april- may

I just planted an alfanso mango. I started to see the leaves having brown spot. I am some what concern.

I grew up with mango tree all my life. This is my first alfanso. Any advise?

Where are you Sandy?..In California anthracnose and other fungus are rare in summer. It might be the extra dry air and heat with a small root system...water more is a good start.

Photo's help.

Eight mangoes on the tree and as of today brand new growth with budding in five new places. Mid-Peninsula, San Francisco Bay area.

Is it usual for fruit to ripen at this time of the year for you?

This is the first time I've had any get this big; the tree is not quite four years old. I have had blossoms at completely random times of the year.

We've had a warm spell of late but definitely cold at night and I've started turning on the incandescent Christmas lights at sunset and covering the tree with two layers of frost covers, given that we woke up to 43F yesterday. And yet it went up to 80 by the afternoon, so the warm days, added nighttime warmth, plus equinox and the tree is growing and budding as if it were spring.

You might thin the fruit. Its best to not allow them to fruit for the first couple of years or more..but almost nobody does that!

Mangoes here in the bay area when small dont seem to have the energy to grow and fruit in the same year. Its one or the other. Fruiting also weakens small trees in trying to survive winter.

Now,you can fight back..cover in winter and heat if its supposed to be 32f or lower for the early morning freezes we get. I did that one year and I'm sure it saved the tree from a death or at least severe dieback. So,you are on the right track with protection from cold.

Did you see the Mango vid in Pitssburgh I posted? The bay area is catching on!

Whole year I had just ONE fruit. Over a 100 fell off when they were about an inch long. Not sure whats going on.

It looked like in spring it was going to be a great year for Mangoes to me too. Then,most fell off and those it kept were half the size of last years. The cool bay area summer. We didn't have even a single 90f in Hayward. Lots of low to mid 70's.

Post some photos of the whole tree Amaryllis.

I've kept it covered and with lights at night for about a month now; it's been reading about 74F underneath it at bedtime and 68F at 7:30 a.m. The tree is clearly very happy about that nighttime warmth and I've got a lot of new growth flushing.

The bird netting (I need a better system for that) is covering five mangoes here. I've lost two to critters since the last time I posted. There is more budding starting under the netting, and to the left of it, at the top, to the right above and behind. I got the tree 12/13/2014, kept it under the awning per the instructions for a week to let it recover from its travels the dark from Florida, and planted it a week later. (Ed. to correct myself on the timing.)

Note that the ants immediately arrive when any buds start--they go after them. I sprinkled cinnamon around the trunk and the limbs and joints near the flowering and they're gone. Right now they're selling cinnamon-whisk brooms for Halloween decorations at Trader Joe's and as long as they're pungent they're helpful against squirrels.

That's a great looking tree. Very full canopy. My Manila and a second "Champagne" I grew from seed are far more open. Narrow too. One is like 10' and only half as wide.

I did cover my largest about 4 or 5 years ago. A cold arctic wave. Covered and put a car shop light under it. Didn't have speck of damage.

Mine gets full sun all day in summer, and full sun from morning at uncovering time to mid-afternoon this time of year, when it's shaded for an hour by a tree. So the spot helps.

Amy,how old is the young tree? I'm finding some that are much faster growing then I would have guessed in the bay area. The full dawn to dusk sun is key.

Four years come December.

Update.

At the end of January, I went to see if the biggest one was ripe yet and it fell into my hand. Well alright then. I brought it into the house for a few days and it went from not much of a smell to, oh wow, heavenly. I called the friends who had instigated the planting of the tree in the first place four years earlier and we made a little party out of it: five of us, and everybody got slices of this one small perfect mango (and some home-conched chocolate, but that's another story.) The friend who grew up with an Alphonso tree in his backyard in India was just ecstatic over it--his enthusiasm is what had talked us into trying to do this in the first place. Wonderful time, wonderful mango, wonderful memory now.

There are three more fruits coming along, ripening slowly but getting there.

Last fall we were going to be out of town for five days, twice, while school was going to be in session, so we knew the kid we'd been hiring during Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks to babysit our tree re the frost covers coming on and off night and day wasn't going to be able to do that. So we bit the bullet and bought a circular Sunbubble greenhouse: the larger size, because the tree is only going to grow.

It requires more heating than just the Christmas lights and frost covers and cost more to run, but the freedom to be able to just go and leave it was an immense relief. In our climate, I can unzip it most winter days once it's warm enough so it can release the extra humidity, and I usually towel down the insides in the morning. There are zippered openings around the top, too, but from the outside not the inside and at 5'5" I'm too short to lean over the curving sides to reach them.

Just leaving it zipped and the heat on while we were out of town while it was cold meant that it got good and damp in there. The tree was getting a lot more light than previous winters because three and four layers of frost covers till late morning nearly equals night for it--it clearly liked all that new morning light.

So it budded out big time, starting here then here then here in a gradually growing circle around the tree. Which was wonderful.

We lost every single one of those buds to fungus along with one new flush of leaves at the top that went black and spotted.

But in the months since then the tree seems to have recovered, and meantime, those four mangoes that set last summer carried on, with this first one absolutely living up to every bit of the hype. I'd kind of worried about that, but then it really did. I have never tasted a mango like that. I have never smelled a mango like that. You bite into it and the flavor just keeps growing and growing in your mouth--NOW I know why my friend so missed this part of back home. I'm really glad I planted that tree and I can't wait to see what it will offer us in the years to come.

That said, if I were doing it over I would probably put it in a large planter right up against the house or even pulling it inside when it gets cold enough. But I didn't. It's had space to grow and just as part of the landscaping alone it's absolutely gorgeous and now that it's this big I wouldn't trade how it is for anything.

But oh man that mango. I cannot wait for more. Wow. That said, the second one will go to the kid who helped us keep it in good shape the past few years; he's earned it and he loves that tree. I would not be surprised if it influences what he studies in college in a few years.

The friend from India took the seed of this one home and took lots of pictures to show his friends, you really can grow them here in the Bay Area. You just have to want to badly enough.

Oh, and: the birds and particularly the squirrels avoid that Sunbubble so far, particularly the doorway. It's been up for five months and had that one ripe fruit and that hasn't changed.

A very interesting article on Alphonsos. Who knew they are helping keep the last population of wild Asian lions alive? https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/gyw4zb/alphonso-best-mangoes-india-us

Read the article. Interesting because the best tasting large Mango I ever ate came from Sinaloa..heart of the cartel lands. I spent a fortune on them from a local Mexican market. They went out of business and I haven't found anything like them. They were huge too. I kick myself I never grew one from seed. What was I thinking?

At least his hate of Tommy Atkins wasn't the same as for the small Mexican Mangoes imported. Although,I have noticed the small yellow Mangoes went from "always sweet"..to inconsistent. Like being picked at the wrong time. That's what big business does to a good thing.

Last year about 10 fruits. Not bad to go from almost none to 10. The tree is about 10 years old and about 10 feet tall.

I get 100s of flowers. Last year I clipped off more than 50% to get 10 fruits lol.

But I think I am still missing something in the soil. Its very Clayi soil. Someone told me to add gypsum. I may have put less than half a pound so far.

I intend to fertilize it more. Anyone has any suggestions???

I am here in southern California. This year the winter has been mild so far. In the 40s at night.

Thank you guys. Wishing you all a very good harvest this year.

Great thread to find all! Thanks doe sharing all your tips.

I am very keen on growing an Alphonso mango tree in our yard in the South Bay Area.

@Amaryllis H:
Excellent posts about your tree over several years. Gives me a lot of hope of trying this. How is the tree doing? Do you feel the tree continues to get stronger and bears more mangoes consistently now? How much of a full mature fruit yield do you get yearly?

And does anyone have suggestions of a mango tree that may be even more cold hardy and disease resistant for the Bay Area climate? I am thinking of growing 2 trees - one the Alphonso just because we have been fond of it when in India and do want to give it a best shot (I think I have identified a good warm south facing location). And another tree that could possibly be a safer and hardier backup tree :)

I am glad you are trying different mangoes. My opinion, U may have better luck with Langra than Alphonso. Try both. Good luck.

Manila is hands down hardiest Mango in California. Nothing is really on that level. The general rule is small Asian Mangoes are good for the bay area..and then mid sized fruits like Glenn and Baileys Marvel. I haven't heard of any large Keitt sized Mangoes in the bay area as it would take a tree to be more than a decade old to hold and ripen large fruit is my educated guess.

I had the large size Sunbubble over it. The zipper tore halfway away just before the warranty expired and I was sent a new one free. I taped the old one back together and kept it going for one more year.

I should have heeded the warnings to take it down over the summer even if that's a major pain to do, both for the plastic and the fact that the tree needed the flow of air in the warmth. Whenever I watered it it stayed humid in there for days and I'd be wiping down the condensation in the mornings with a towel. (I can't reach to open the upper zippers.) The ash from all the endless fires on the plastic did not help the tree get enough light and it did not come off with a hard spraying of water. My Alphonso developed some black fungus.

I took the Sunbubble off and pruned that off, and it seems to have recovered. Alphonso is supposed to be one of the more resilient varieties, so, yay.

This past year, given the pandemic and that we're not going anywhere, instead of putting the new Sunbubble on I've reverted to my old method of covering the tree with half a dozen layers of heavy-duty frost covers at night with Christmas lights beneath. That does weigh the newer limbs downward and it does help keep the tree from getting too tall.

It tried to start a little budding in November. Those few turned black in the cold. It sent out another one or two in December. Might still get a few flowers from that. Then I found some lights out down there in the lower leaves and replaced them and that helped. Since we had those warm February days, it's really starting to get going and my challenge is to not pull off the buds and new leaves with the covers going on and off. We've had a few nights warm enough to simply leave them off but we're not done with that yet.

It's a lot cheaper than running a heater trying to keep up with all the space in the greenhouse. Had I planted it against the house it would have gotten more warmth that way.

I don't think it has changed since the sequester in Obama's time that the national weather tower that predicts our weather here is based on the Monterey peninsula and is blind to our incoming clouds below a certain height--so I find our nighttime forecasts consistently rosy as to how low the temperature will go. Usually by about six to eight degrees in winter. If it says anything below 50, I cover the tree.

I'm further up the peninsula, not in San Jose, for whatever that's worth.

One good hot day and all of these would be growing almost fast enough to watch it happen. That tree wants to produce!

Last summer I had four fruits that made it past the fungus and everything else. The two weeks of practically no usable sunlight from the wildfires made them noticeably less sweet, less scented and less flavorful and quite a bit smaller than the three from the first harvest the year before--but: I got to keep my promise. I have a friend who grew up in Hawaii with mangoes, had tried to grow them here, and they had died every time. She'd never heard of the Christmas lights thing. She figured she was too old to try again, so I was determined to get her a homegrown mango and last summer I finally did.

She's a Pearl Harbor witness and survivor and just turned 95 and I got her her mango. It didn't have to be perfect, it just had to be. That felt so good.

Thanks for the updates and continued details. I’m sure it will help with these ideas to give the best possible conditions.

I am thinking of the Mallika along with the Alphonso. From online reviews on various sites, it seems to be productive, semi-dwarf and disease resistant. I did not seem to find Langara variety online.

Looking to order from one of the growers in Florida, though almost all are selling 3 gal plants. Most 7 gal plants are out of stock. I’d like to plant by end of Feb so that the plant can settle in and hopefully establish as the weather warms up.

Also thinking of espaliering the tees to get maximum direct south facing sunlight and back up on a wall, and to keep the trees more manageable. Anyone tried espalier tropical fruit trees? I’ve seen some online suggestions but not much more. Seems easier to do for tropical plants since the shoots usually are usually so flexible and vigorous.

Alphonso mango at six years old in Zone 9B.

@amaryllis have you needed to prune to keep the height in check and encourage low branching or is this how it grew naturally? This height would be ideal. Any special soil amendments or fertilizers during early growth?

Some friends helped me hoist the assembled Sunbubble over it a few years ago and the placement was such that I couldn't get around half of it to prune it and I couldn't really see the overall effect from steps away to get a good feel for how I should, anyway, so it was pruned very little the last three years; I pruned away the diseased parts and some particularly high new growth that I could see eventually poking out the top of the plastic and not much more. The frost covers' weight diverts the branches downward and then in the next flush they grow curving back up. While it was in the Sunbubble it did more straight upwards growth. As for fertilizers, um, there was a dove that died hitting the window five years ago that I buried below the edge of the fence there in a Natives and Pilgrims corn plant/fish reenactment thing (figuring, it's dead, might as well not freak out the garbage people) and the raccoons never caught on that it was down there. But that's it.

Hi ! I am in Hayward. Recently purchased Alfonso mango .please give me some tips how to grow :

soil , fertilizer, how often to water it ? Thank you in advance!

FULL SUN!..As much as you can muster and if there is a wall? Even better to start. They take Haywards 10a winters..it's getting them to flush in summer that's the main work. I would regularly fertilize them. I have used a variety of ferts..any good quality should suffice. Water well all summer also. They are slow growers so don't even think of part sun for them..they need dawn to dusk if possible.

Here is my Alphonso Mango tree which I planted earlier this year (March 2021). This is in Cupertino (South Bay Area) - planted close to a south facing wall that gets a lot of sunlight and heat. I had bought it from a nursery - shipped from Florida.

I pruned the nursery single trunk down to 20 inches at planting time and it grew 4 branches. I pruned the four branches in summer when they were 20 inches and now there are another 10 small branches. I've been tying the branches down a bit to keep the tree height low as it grows.

That's the way to do it. Some wait until its 5' or so to a single trunk,THEN pinch it. But, we have frosts and getting bay area Mangoes to branch young helps fight that.

This was a cool summer in Hayward. I got one measly flush. But last year was a bounty of Mango fruit and I guess the small tree's needed a rest,or couldn't muster big growth from a summer of rare 85f or more.

@stanofh 10a Hayward,Ca S.F. bay area - Good to know that you got mangoes last year! How old was your tree when it first fruited?

I read in places that the first ever flowers should be removed and let the tree continue to grow and get stronger. So if and when it gets flowers, I will need to decide.

It took growing the Ataulfo five years from seed and about 5' tall. The Manila I bought as Baileys Pride..then things get tricky as a freeze in 2012 killed it to the graft. Since then,it has fruited most years since it got to 3' and the fruits were in scale with the tree. Small sweet fruits when it was 3' tall..and then to last year had full sized fruits and in the 10-12' range. But!..the fruits do not look like Baileys..they look Manila.

A local in Hayward's tree flushed as usual..so I think my heavy crop last year caused a slow down. Plus,this summer's cooler temps were no help. Like you,I planted in the hottest spot with room I have.

I think all the smoke in the air for so long impaired the abilities of everything in the garden and I found things in general less sweet than normal. Sunlight=sugar production. I only got one small flush on my Alphonso, too, here on the SF Peninsula, and the fruit is taking what feels like a long time to ripen. But it's getting there.

@Amaryllis H or @stanofh 10a Hayward,Ca S.F. bay area - have you felt the need to treat the tree for any fungus / Anthracnose, especially during the rains and winter time?

No. All I've done is fertilize them. That Vigaro sold for palms? Really works on almost anything to green things a deeper shade. The Anthracnose seems to come at the end of winter and not bad enough I ever needed to spray. Then,after the first flush,it's all forgotten as old brown leaves fall off.

This year instead of three flushes.. I got only one and it was very minor..no big 12" leaves as it had been doing the last few years.

No big leaves on mine this year either.

I did have anthracnose, though, and pretty bad for awhile: I had the tree inside a round plastic greenhouse and leaving the door open during the daytime was not enough. There were I think eight velcroed openings above but I'm too short to reach them. I think my 6'8" husband's almost too short: you have to lean over the curve of the thing and the velcro was so strong that the one time we tried, the handle you pull on for it tore off. To be fair, it was a few years old then.

The problem was that water condensed on the inside of it enough to soak towels as I wiped it down every day, and the tree took a hit in that humidity. And yet you had to water it in winter because rain didn't make it in.

The door tore and the company replaced the whole thing but then the pandemic hit; the whole reason for buying it was so I could go off and visit my small grandkids, but since we weren't going anywhere we took it down and I went back to my old method of multiple layers of frost covers on cold nights.

So those were the drawbacks of that greenhouse--and yet. It made it so we could travel and not worry about losing fruit or the tree itself to the cold while we were gone. It's across the yard from the house, so, no radiant heat to help out there, and incandescent Christmas lights help a lot but you have to hold that heat in.

The tree gradually recovered.

We still have the unopened replacement greenhouse at the ready.

Ok thanks, maybe then anthracnose may not be such a big problem if humidity is not allowed to stay high too long when covered