I should have mentioned what he has to choose from:

helmut
nata
big sister
orton
pierce
bays
el bumpo
honeyhart
sabor
fino de jete
booth
la conchita

Just saw that shipping is free. Not such a bad price when you consider that.

Having a fine little conversation with myself here...

Cherimoya.com has some good info on different cultivars, as well as growing cherimoya, grafting etc.

Been there. But they scare me with their sign-up requirement. I did find some good info on the CRFG cherimoya infosheet. From that, it looks like el bumpo and sabor are supper tasty.

They do have an impressive selection, but be a bit wary. I have bought several trees from them, including a Bays Cherimoya. The plants are grown in a very heavy, water-retentive soil. When watered it resembles mud, so you will probably have to repot right away. Their grafting practices are very strange. I have gotten a couple of trees from them where the scion was much smaller than the rootstock. Also, their rootstocks appear to sucker much more than others. That being said, it is very difficult to find most of these trees anywhere else. The cloudforest website has some great information on Cherimoya varieties so check it out.

-Brett

thanks for the info Brett. I do remember the mud my makrut came in.

I'll check out cloudforest too.

steve

After chewing on the great cherimoya conversations over at cloudforest, I decided on the el bumpo & honeyhart. Did I say I was going to just get one?

I went ahead and ordered those two at socalnursery on ebay. Hopefully, the trees I get aren't funkily grafted.

Thanks all for your help & advice.

steve

Hello Steve,
Did you get your trees yet? And, if so, how do they look?

They came today Rodney.

They look...decent. Not gorgeous, not horrible. Soil was pretty dry by the time they came (via UPS ground). A few leaves at the bottom of the box. Not a ton of leaves on the trees, a little leggy in form. The graft looks decent. They did come in that muddy soil he must dig up from his yard out there in, I assume, socal.

It'll take some good lovin', good staking, and better soil, but they'll do just fine I think.

Would I socalnursery760 again? Meh. Only under duress.

Now you just have to hope they sent you the correct varieties. I have 2 cherimoya's from them and have some question if they are correct from the way the fruit looks.

ai, jsvand5, you're killing me with this post-purchase-posting!

El bumpo is pretty unmistakable, though honeyhart less so. The honeyhart came with fruit already set, and both came with multiple buds. Time will tell, unless they drop from the stress. In which case, time will tell.

thanks all for the insight and feedback.

-steve

Good luck. Mine may just look different due to my climate so I would not worry too much. I ordered a pierce and a honeyheart. Can you take a pic of the honeyheart? It would be interesting to see if it looks the same as mine.

One honeyhart fruit is smaller than my thumbnail. The other even smaller -- you most likely won't be able to tell anything about the eventual fruit from what I've got now.

Here's a pic of the trees after unpacking for any other hard-up northerners considering paying $108/tree for cherimoyas from socalnursery:

el bumpo on the left, honeyhart on the right.

El skimpo on both sides. Oh well.....may they flush and fruit for you in record time!

Harry

If that was your only option, then you had to do what you had to do. However, those are very "anorexic", especially for $108 per tree. On the bright side, cherimoyas have rapid growth so, hopefully in no time, your trees will have lots of branches & leaves. Good luck, Man.

BTW, apply steady amounts of nitrogen to encourage more growth, just not too much

Wow thats pretty expensive, I hope the 108/tree includes shipping. Your trees do look leggy but so does my Honeyhart and Dr. White. In fact, my grafted trees I picked up at the farmers market looks almost identical to yours and even came in the same type of container.

Cherimoyas do grow very fast and you can easily shape it into a beautiful tree. Be sure to shape the tree properly or else it will be very difficult to hand pollinate the flowers when your tree gets larger. Keep us updated.

Thanks for the luck Rodney.

I read somewhere Cherimoyas are prolific in SoCal, and run about $20 for a 4-5' tree. $108 - now that's markup!

PapapyaTree Nursery has a great cherimoya pruning how-to video that will come in handy.

updates forthcoming for sure - stay tuned til next year. heh.

Here is a link that might be useful: prune dem 'moyas

Great choices you bought there steve. I hope they grow fast and lush. I really enjoy Honeyhart. They fruit is really juicy and flavorful :)

Daniel

any new pics? update?

nice bump btw...