i have not seen any "fruit salad" trees sold at the nurseries. there are the Houston Garden centers all over. if you go when they're having sales you can pick up some for over half off. this past fall they had citrus for half off, my dad and i each bought a different orange tree for $20 each. if you are towards the south, there is Joseph's nursery down in Pearland. i bought a couple of mango trees last spring. there's a few around the west side. right off I-10 Katy fwy south Dairy Ashford is Cornelius. and they have another over at Voss just north of Westhiemer. over on the NW side at the NW corner of hwy 249 and beltway 8 is RCW, i bought a lemon and 2 orange trees from them two years ago. as far as ordering plants, they cannot ship citrus into Texas. but other fruit trees should be ok. of the fruits you mentioned, i have not had great success with apples and certain plums. citrus and peaches have been good. i have not personally grown mulberry, but have had neighbors in the past that have had them and they do very well. they do attract a lot of caterpillars.

California has a million micro-climates. SF Peninsula where i live can vary 15-20 degrees based on if you are in the path of the incoming fog. My particular city (our motto is Climate Best by Government Test) is pretty much optimal - not as much fog as up north but not too hot in the summer, we haven't seen frost in 3 years but still get enough chill hours for peaches and plums. My neighbor to the right grows bananas and has a mango tree (no fruit yet) and the other neighbor grows cherries. Zone 9b, Sunset 16 - its gardening paradise. It will cost you big bucks to live here, though, especially with enough land for fruit trees.

This is the pertinent portions of a thread from a few years ago that might help: Multiple Plants in One Hole The three-to-a-hole thing is a totally new concept to me. I question if that would work because each of the trees would grow at unequal rates. I have a Fuerte, a Reed and a Haas planted in close proximity (15 feet apart) and clearly the Fuerte is growing much faster than the other two. All three were planted at the same time, but the Fuerte is easily twice as big as the other two. If you put three trees in the same hole, wouldn't one eventually overgrow the other two? ___________________________________________________________________ Three in a hole planting is easy. To insure good drainage first make a 12" to 18" mound that is at least 4 or 5 feet wide. Then dig a hole in it large enough for the three 5 gallon size trees. Throw some slow release fertilizer in the hole. Make sure the trees are a few inches above the soil surface. They may settle a little. And you don`t want them planted too low. Cover the whole mound with a thick coat of mulch and you are set. The trees won`t grow any slower because they are sharing a hole. Its a great space saver. Reed and Pinkerton are Guatemalan and Fuerte is a hybrid. You need a Mexican for better pollination. Bacon would be a good choice. ___________________________________________________________________ For years I`ve done the 3 in a hole planting with all my fruit trees from avocados, persimmons, cherimoyas, asian pears and guavas to peaches, plums, nectarines, apples and apricots. I get good production from all of them. I`ve never had one of the three trees grow faster and take over the hole. It works especially well with stone fruits like peaches. In one hole I have a early bearing peach, a mid season and a late season variety. My avocado trees are still young so I don`t get that many avocados yet. _________________________________________________________________ Three in one or 4 in 1 up to several in one hole is a very good alternative to multigraft trees. I have pears that are not graft compatible so I planted them all in one hole, and they are not complaining. They've been busy supplying me with fruits for two seasons now. But then again, most of my fruits are multi-grafts, some I did the grafting myself. __________________________________________________________________ It is still possible to plant them in one hole if the difference in size is not great. So just find a bigger Granny Smith to match the size of your Pink Pearl. During the dormant season, you can dig out the pink pearl to bare root it. Make sure to prune the top to compensate for the root disturbance. You can prune the pearl to be the same size as that of granny smith. Then plant them back together in the same hole. Deciduous trees that go a period of dormancy are okay for this. I have even dug bigger trees, bare-rooted them and relocated them to the proper place. When the winter temperature is mild, I dump a lot of ice around the plant everyday for one week before I dig them out and bare-root them. You can not do this with Avocados and most other evergreen fruit trees like citruses. ___________________________________________________________________ ??? You're mentioning 5 gal plants.... I was under the, perhaps misguided, impression that to do this 'multiples in one hole' technique you had to use bare root trees. ???? ___________________________________________________________________ You don`t see bare root avocado plants. For some reason only "stone" fruits like peaches, plums and apricots are available bare root. I`ve only seen avocado plants in 5 or 15 gallon containers. The trunks aren`t as close as they would be if they were bare root, but it hasn`t made a difference in my trees. ___________________________________________________________________ I think the reason you don't see bare-root Avocados and Citrus is because they're evergreen trees. You can't really bare-root an evergreen commercially. __________________________________________________________________ ..so can i place all three 5gal buckets(with the bottoms cut out) in the hole?? will that work??? only reason ide like to do that is i once heard that the buckets serve as a guide for the roots to shoot more downward rather than outward.. that way the roots dont get all crazy and lift my back wall up in the future... but if you just drop all 3 in the hole bare root style so be it..whatevers best for the tree's is best for me. i love hass and reed never tasted bacon though .. anymore tasty trios that will work great together??.. ___________________________________________________________________ Â

Whoa--I have not seen that cherimoya on Morro Road. Can you be more specific for location? Somewhere along there Mike Cirone of See Canyon Orchards grows cherimoya, white sapote and mandarins. Could be his? He comes to the Farmer's Market in LO as well as SLO and other places in the area. That's how I got my seeds (from his fruit) to start my seedlings that I have since grafted. I hope your star fruit seeds are really fresh because they are said to lose viability within a few days of being removed from the fruit. I was worried about that but wanted to try a plant so I bought a small seedling on ebay and it's doing well in the greenhouse. You can also easily start mango seeds from the manila-type mangoes in the supermarket which are polyembryonic and can produce seedlings true-to-type without grafting. I hope to plant out my cherimoyas and sapotes in the spring. I always graft doubles because I don't trust my luck. But I got really lucky this time around. If you're interested in possible surplus (after I've offered them to neighbors and friends), email me: steve_shops "at" sbcglobal.net Oh, and by the way, the closest nursery that has anything tropical to speak of is the Green Arrow/Green Thumb in Ventura. Last time I was there they had a variety of cherimoya, sapote, mangoes, guavas, etc. Nothing *really* exotic but good basic stock. It's not "close" but it's a nice drive and it's not like going to San Diego or L.A.