Hi Josh. Thanks for your response. I'm in NZ (Zone 8) Its autumn here at the moment and it still has some very slow growth. It might have stopped now actually !!! The reason i'm asking is i saw on a succulent info site http://www.highlandsucculents.com/culture_guide.htm that Portulacaria are actually dormant in summer. I am from SA and know them well in those conditions but over here they do grow much slower. I only noticed some growth at the start of autumn. I stay up in the mountain and the plants do grow slower up here,than down in the valley. I grow bonsai and use the gritty mix. I plan to repot it in a training pot with only pumice as a medium. Its in gritty mix at the moment. I plan to lift it and trim very little roots to fit in the smaller pot. Then bring it inside to recover over winter. I know they are very tough but still are reluctant to do it but i actually have to...... On the one hand I'm kinda itching and on the other i have to lighten it because its in a very big box that i built for it. I'm moving house over winter and that box is to big to move comfortably. I'm getting someone over to help me load photos because i am just to stupid :-)

Mine mature well in Portland. I did have a variety that ripened in December here instead of November. Then we got to 15 in late November. No fruit off that plant that year. I agree with Larry Gene: Seattle-not enough sun, OR-WA coast not enough sun. Even in Portland, it better be in full sun. In ground better than in pot. I hand pollinate to get a lot of fruit. Since I transplanted a mature plant, not much fruit. I'm going to try to grow another seedling off of my fruit. FLowers are beautiful and very yummy. Native bird in Brazil eats the flowers, which don't affect pollination. Then it's tail feathers pollinate the fruit. John S PDX OR

Hi Cory, so nice to hear from you! I'm sorry about your trees, I bet it is the watering issue, that has happened to me before too. That's the problem with my tall pots, if the root system isn't big enough the top dries out while the bottom is wet and you can't win! So now I stick to the 2.5 gallons unless the root ball is truly huge and developed. I'm sure they will bounce back but I know it's hard to lose the fruit. I'm rooting for you! One tip I remember us discussing a while back was to put some wet coir on the top of the pots to keep the tops wetter? Not sure if that would work but maybe it would help the top layer of medium from totally drying out. See that's what Greenscape Gardens did with my tiny 4 trees in the pic above? You can see the coir matting? Keep us updated, I know your collection is gorgeous!

Why does this stuff get bumped? The sort of forums where these things were discussed are now long gone or moribund, but the no Eucalyptus has been shown to be consistently hardy below 0F. Remember (if you studied science) 0F, was not randomly chosen by Fahrenheit, it happens to be the point at which traditional solutes cannot further suppress the freezing of water. So "around -5F to 10F" is where many whole categories of plants hit their limits of hardiness. Eucs are Myrtaceae and I'd say as an entire plant family, no Myrtaceae can go much below 0F, if that. Sure once in a while a random Euc might (top) survive a bit below 0F, but it wouldn't be reproducible. If there are tiny pockets of AU that are zone 6, they are the valley floors that have no naturally growing trees. (see https://www.houzz.com/discussions/4283901/oohh-heaven-is-a-place-on-earth-apologies-to-belinda-carlisle#18778964 due to some houzz bug, you have to re-enter the URL to get the 'named anchor' html tag to work. It's the part where I say " As I kept climbing, I got to the areas where the valleys are so cold, no native trees can grow at all.") Australia's continental record low was -9.4F and it's safe to assume that rarely attained temperature killed the Eucs in Charlotte's Pass, at least to the ground. The hardiest Euc after decades of trying various ones is Eucalyptus lacrimans, but it's very root rot sensitive, I've lost a couple to that. (they are the trees in the hillsides of my pic) Oddly reminiscent of the fact the most heat tolerant fir, Abies firma, has little foliar fragrance, E. lacrimans is the only Euc I've encountered with almost none of that wonderful leaf odor. I even confirmed this on the trees I saw in the Snowy Mountains. I suspect some of the hardiest BLEs lose their leaves in colder winters in zone 5, but survive...similar to the leaves of PJM darkening as socal mentioned. https://www.quackingrassnursery.com/plant/Viburnum-rhytidophyllum