Lycheeluva, nice job! How old is the lychee? It looks to be in great shape. The citrus look very good, too.

Watch your humidity and watering carefully with that baseboard heater underneath.

Man, the plants look great.

Any thoughts on trying to meet the lychee's chill requirement?

thanks stress baby- (to get a compliment from either you or Jay is a big deal to me!)

the room the plants are in is a sectioned off room in the basement, and the baseboard heater is actually not on- the boiler room is in my basement- which keeps the whole basement nice and warm- plus the light generates plenty of heat- so i dont actually need heating in the room- at least not yet- and i think i should be ok for heat throughout the winter.

with regard to the chilling requirement- i have been keeping the window open an inch or two- so at night when the light is off, the temp probably goes down to about 55.
also, the lychees were outside during the fall and probably the chill requirement was already met during the fall. however, im not expecting the lychee tree to fruit this year- the tree is probably too young- i only got the tree last spring (from jen's tropicals) and when the tree first arrived, it shed its leaves ( i assume from the stres of travelling). so it probably used up a hell of alot of its energy in regrowing leaves in the spring.

with regard to humidity- i am keeping a bucket of water in the room with a fan on- and im hoping that will create sufficient humidity- i water the plants about every two weeks

my goal this winter for the lychee tree is to keep it healthy and hopefully, next year, i can dream of getting it to fruit.

any suggestions from all are very much welcome.

lycheeluva, the pics look great. The lychee looks very healthy, and it seems like you're doing all of the right things to keep it that way. Stressbaby, how's your lychee doing now?

Eldys, my Sweetheart looks fine. The Brewster suffered from "failure to thrive" in the center ground bed in the GH...it lost nearly all of it's leaves, it wasn't growing symmetrically at all. I dug it up and containerized it in a mix of pine bark:perlite:peat 4:1:1 and it seems to be staging a comeback (*knock wood*). But it looks nowhere near as good as lycheeluva's!

Hi lycheeluva,

Your plants looks incredible!! They are so healthy. I am so amazed with all of you that grow fruit trees inside or in greenhouses.I love the picture of your trees with the snow in the background, really cool. Growing them in florida has enough challenges but not nearly the challenges you guys encounter. My hats are off to you guys.

Your citrus trees looks so much healthier than most of the trees here in my neighborhood, I have a Potted kumquat and a dwarf lemon and almost all our trees in my neighborhood have leaf miner, they make the leaves very unattractive. Very hard to treat so I just live with it. That is the main reason I grow mango and lychees. The citrus for me are so much more maintenance.

Anyways, just wanted to say your trees really are so healthy and beautiful...Great pictures, and great job!!

Thanks for the kind words and encouragement everyone.

alas! I didnt inspect the plants for 2 days and the citrus tree with all the blossoms on it got too dry and dropped most of its blossoms and a nice chunk of its leaves- i would have never guessed it could go downhill so fast- oh well- you live and learn- hopefully, a few of the blossoms will survive and set fruit.

lycheeluva,

I'm interested in your 800w super spectrum light. Where did you get them? I will need to get that for my potted plants in the winter. I will do the same and place it in the basement. Do you have a pic of how the light look like?

Thanks

I would just google super spectrum lights- they come in 400w, 800w, and 1000w setups. shop around online to get the best price. i dont think i have a pic, but like i said, you can find it online very easily.
i dont thinks its the most efficient lighting system, but they are very simple to use and set up.

Thanks lycheeluva. I thought it was something from Home depot...but WOW they are expensive. Not sure if I want to invest in that for now. I'll just use my old lighting system for now...LOL.