Fig trees in central florida - Gainesville
ben_in_sofla
16 years ago
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bihai
16 years agofamous_world
16 years agoRelated Discussions
Need suggestions for Florida roses (central east)
Comments (15)Cupshaped, We lived just south of Daytona for over 20 years. We hadn't discovered OGRs, but gave up on the HTs that were sold at garden centers because they were too much work--the constant spraying required was a nightmare. Especially in the heat of summer, when you'd come in needing a blood transfusion from all the mosquito bites. We were on a barrier island, so the "soil" was almost pure sand with a thin layer of leaf litter and pine straw on top. Water & nutrients ran right through it. We found gardening with Florida natives to be a very satisfying, enviromentally friendly way to go. If you want a Florida native that will attract butterflies, get a firebush (Hamelia patens). Wonderful red-orange tube-shaped flowers are great nectar sources for most butterflies, and hummingbirds like them, too. Being a native, it should perform well--there may be a little freeze damage once in a while in Daytona, but it's good to whack the bushes back once in a while, anyway. Another great Florida native for butterflies is Wild Coffee (Psychotria nervosa). Makes a beautiful rounded bush with shiny leaves, small white flowers, and red berries. Zebra longwing butterflies LOVE it. Citrus trees act as larval food for Eastern Swallowtails (the caterpillars look like bird poop, and put out scary red antennae-type things when alarmed, but the butterflies are GORGEOUS.) The caterpillars don't eat that much, so just ignore the few chewed on leaves and wait for them to emerge in all their flying glory. And you can eat the citrus, too. Passionflower vines are larval food for zebra longwings, and have great flowers. Muhly grass is a lovely ornamental native grass that has pinkish blooms. And some of the spartina grasses are also great native ornamentals. Green Images in Christmas, Florida is a WONDERFUL native plant nursery that's not too far from Daytona. Worth a trip over there, and they should have a bunch of natives that will perform well and bring in the butterflies. Depending on your friends' soil, amendments can be tricky. If they're in a real sandy area, the soil is so coarse that it has tons of air & oxygen in it, and organics burn up so fast that you almost can't add them quickly enough to make a difference. Other places are muck (basically swamp bottom) and have much richer soil. The Florida Native Plant Society is a wonderful organization and a great source of information if you want to "go native". Natives are so much easier to grow, provide food and cover for birds and butterflies, and low maintenance to boot. Water rationing is becoming pretty common in Florida, and planting things that will deal with normal rainfall is a way to have a beautiful garden in spite of water restrictions....See MorePaw paws for Central Florida?
Comments (17)I'm the Xentar_GW from the previous posts. My largest TN seedling finally bloomed for the first time in 2015, and it produced its first two fruits in 2020. I can only guestimate that the actual tree was somewhere around 20 years old at the time, albeit I've had a Florida panhandle seedling bloom in just a few years. My grafted 'Mango' cultivar also just now bloomed for the first time this year (2022). So, it looks like the mango took 13 years to bloom in my area. As a grafted cultivar, that seems like a long time. Compared to even northern grafted cultivars of paw paw I have, which sometime have bloomed within just a few years of being planted, I was surprised that something like the 'Mango' cultivar wasn't blooming, when the 'Sunflower' and Pennsylvania Golden had been for many years. I haven't kept up with yearly chill hours and what has bloomed or hasn't bloomed, but in 2015, we had 378 chill hours and had enough for the Florida panhandle seedling, a TN mountain seedling, 'Sunflower' grafted, and I believe a Pennsylvania Golden grafted cultivar all bloomed. Although some have stated that the 'Sunflower' is partially self fertile, I have seen no evidence of that btw. Maybe in the north, where wild paw paws are likely somewhere in the area, they are just randomly being pollinated, and people think they are producing fruit on their own. I'm assuming the PA-Golden paw paws are from Pennsylvania, and the Sunflower is from Kansas, Mango from Georgia, and Florida panhandle seedling is obviously from the Florida panhandle. At 378 chill hours, they all eventually produced flowers, sometimes just a couple years, for both seedling and grafted varieties, and sometimes over ten years, also for seedlings and grafted cultivars. Using the origin of each paw paw cultivar doesn't seem to be a good tool to go by, in terms of either how long they're going to take to produce blooms or how many chill hours they need. I can tell you that, as probably one of the only people in the world that has produced flowers from Haskap in Florida, if not the only person, it's not always about the chill hours. People may tell you that there's no way you can get the chill hours needed in Florida for Haskap, but it's actually the heat that kills the plants. From my limited successes, Haskap may not need much, if any, chill hours. It may have its own internal clock, to tell it when to bloom etc. Obviously, paw paws are different from haskap. Many don't like sun, or they may have to be started in shade, but what we really don't know is how far south they can go, and what the minimum chill hours are, for either all varieties of paw paw (asimina triloba) or some specific cultivars. I'm going to venture to guess that, one day, there will be paw paws that can bloom in Orlando, maybe even Tampa, but most of the people experimenting with them are doing it north of Florida, not in Florida, and certainly not that far south in the state. We know there are some Gainesville cultivars and maybe some of the Duckworth cultivars somewhere, which were seedlings from Louisiana that just happened to produce fruit. I don't think people will want to buy a paw paw cultivar that tastes like crap, is too small, and has too many seeds, with very little edible pulp. So, sorting out chill hours and then trying to breed in good qualities may take some time. BTW, my TN seedling has produced more flowers this year than ever, probably over 100. It's currently in-bloom right now, and one of my smaller TN seedlings, right next to it, is also blooming, albeit far less. Hopefully we can get a good amount of fruit this year from it....See Morefruit trees for central florida
Comments (2)I think an avocado tree would do well in your yard. Needless to say that here in Florida all sorts of citrus trees would probably do well also....See MoreGrowing Bananas in Gainesville (North Central Florida)
Comments (4)I have no idea what kind of bananas I have, but it's one that has tall plants. Not a dwarf, that's for sure. It's almost up to the roof now. It's going to be a good 10 feet tall, I believe. I'm hoping it's an ice cream banana. I love those, and they are pretty common around here. I had a Praying Hands in SW FL, but it never got big enough to have fruit. I ended up selling it when I moved. I also had a thousand fingers that died during a particularly wet period....See Morean_ill-mannered_ache
16 years agofigs should do fabulously there. they need very little in the way of chill hours. nematodes are always a problem where the soil is sandy and the winters mild, but containers are always an option. here in deland, about 2 hrs south of you, i know of several massive (climbing-size) brown turkeys. my alma, in the ground, is only 2years old, but right now it's lined with figs.
corar4gw
16 years agomadbloomer
16 years agopnbrown
16 years agobihai
16 years agoan_ill-mannered_ache
16 years agopnbrown
16 years agogatormomx2
16 years agojoel_godin_gmail_com
15 years agohappy_fl_gardener; 9a, near DeLand
15 years agocountrynest
15 years ago
This picture was taken last year. It is a Brown turkey that I've had for several years. It was a gift and the tree was big already. Nematodes killed a small and medium size. This tree has really grown lately. Everyday for the past weeks We
have been harvesting a basket of figs. My wife has made syrup and marmalade for ice cream and pancakes. My property is south of Ocala. Established trees fair much better than young ones.
Felixedwds1
14 years agojsmith_zkslawfirm_com
13 years ago
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