Thanks everyone for your advice! It is very helpful! Applenut, you are 100% correct! I got my tree from Lowes when they had it on clearance for $5. Wasn't planning to get it but just couldn't resist the price. Like you mentioned, the Fuji and Beverly Hills are definitely not competing very well with the others ~ they did not have much growth and no flowers. I am planning to plant it in the ground next spring. I am also planning to get a separate Fuji tree next spring. In the meantime, I guess I will try to let the Anna and Dorsett Golden to keep some fruits like you suggested. But I do have another question: you mentioned the tree is expected to flower and fruit this time of the year. Does it mean we can have 2 crops of apple every year, one from spring flowering and one from fall? It would be great! By the way, can anyone advise me on the difference between bareroot trees (I mean like the ones you find in the home centers) vs. bench graft trees? Are bench graft ones better than the bareroots? Also, does anyone know of a good source to buy low chill apples? I have heard of a variety called Tropic Sweet but could not locate a place to buy it in So Cal. Thanks!

Hey Phase, our weather down here should have something to do with it. It is still pretty cold at night even though it is Spring already. There is another cold front coming in tomorrow and we should get some more Chill hours as the nightly temps are estimated to go down to around 43F. Ong Nurseries Hak Ip and their large Kaimana tree that is planted in the ground is starting to flower when I checked them out today so you may get lucky if they have some males developing soon. If you have just one male flower, the pollen from that male can pollinate hundreds upon hundreds of females as long as you collect the pollen when it is fully ripe but not completely dried out. Just keep your eye on that single male flower and let if fully develope. If you touch the pollen sacs gently with a black card (for contrast) and can see little particles that look like dust on it, then the pollen should be good to go. You want to make sure you don't catch it too late because one strong gust of wind and most of the pollen can be blown away. I used to go to a place called Pacific Tree Farms around the Chula Vista area but I'm not sure if they are still open or not, I thought I heard people saying it has shut down. There is another place called "California Tropical Fruit Trees but they are only open on Sats from 9am to 4pm or Mon-Fri by appointment only. CTFT's is in the Vista area not too far from Exotica. Your flower spikes on your tree may be more tightly clustered because your plant is in the ground and pretty healthy because you innoculated with mycorrhizal fungi and we got a good amount of chill hours this year. Longer less dense flower spikes can be caused by low chill hours. With low chill hours the growth begins with some leaves and small flower spikes which grow long but with very few flower buds inbetween. Just my guess :)

bananafan, sorry to hear your Longan didn't do well. I guess somehow longan has more issues growing in Florida -- are you in FL? We in Southern Cal have an easy time with Longan -- i's so easy to grow beside being killed by the very cold below 29F winters. My longan is about 11 yrs old and was killed down to ground. I thought it was a goner and not even care to cut off the stump. Then one day in spring I saw a little thing -- looked like a seedling -- popped up. I opened up the soil to find out it's a seedling or from the death tree and sure enough it was from the deep root of the death tree. I dug up and moved it closer to the wall for protection and couple years later it was over 5 ft tall but skinny leg, then a very cold winter killed it down to ground level. This time I knew it would come back. Sure enough it did and the last 8 years we had no hard winter and now it reaches over 10 feet. Here is the top of the tree with flowers. The second photo is one of the horizontal branches.

Hey Phase, great update! Your Sweetheart looks like it will hold some good fruit this year. My Kaimana is about the same size as yours and it is also flowering. My Sweetheart is flowering this year and I hope I will be able to taste my first lychee from this tree this year. Keep up the great work and give me a call if you want to come check out my plants. Simon