I have a Minnie Royal/ Royal Lee pair in a raised bed that went in earlier this year. Fingers crossed. There is actually a commercial variety of low chill cherries that I would LOVE to get my hands on but they sell only to commercial growers. They are known as the "little darlings," Royal Edie and Royal Helen. They fruit later than Minnie/Lee. I have not tasted any of these myself. I'm hoping to have five or six raised beds with 4 in 1 hole. I'm still collecting the trees, but by January should have everything. 4 "Royal" low chill cherries (Minnie/Lee, Edie/Helen) 4 Interspecifics, most likely: Flavor King Pluot Flavor Grenade Pluot Emerald Drop Plu-ot Bella Gold Pea-cot-um A single Weeping Santa Rosa 4 Plums and friends: Sweet Treat Plu-erry Burgandy, Mariposa & Catalina Plum 4 Nectarines and friends: Spice Zee Necta-plum Snow Queen, Panamint, and Double Delight Nectarines 4 Peaches Considering Sugar Giant, OHenry Mid Pride Eva's Pride (Any input here?) Maybe a avacado hole... Maybe an apricot /aprium hole...

Thanks Ronald, Cagary and dghays. If I decide to graft I will make sure to graft Kohala on a smaller, higher up branch. I live in a special microclimate of San Diego CA where we get very light frost only occasionally, we can even get Indian and mixed mangoes to grow here. I live really close to Leo Manuel of the CRFG and he has tons of fruiting Mangoes at his house. I'm really leaning towards the Kohala because of all the recommendations but I wish I could taste all the varieties for a direct comparison. I have only tasted the Kohala from Exotica Nursery but they didn't cull the fruit so the fruit was kinda small and the fruit I did taste were picked early but still sweet. The seeds were small but the flesh wasn't fully developed yet because the flesh is supposed to develope when the Longan are fully mature. I was probably 1-2 weeks early. I recently came across an article that says a new variety of Longan called "Egami" is very much prefered in Hawaii. The fruits are smaller than Kohala but it is supposed to be superior to Kohala and other varieties by the people who have tasted Egami. Thanks for everyones input, please keep the suggestions comming:)

Depends on what you want to do with them. I grew Sandia's for a couple of seasons. Didn't mind them, although to me they had very thick skin. This worked for me because I liked to smoke roast and freeze them. For me they never got much size on them. This year my Biggie Chiles are doing really well. Nice size and shape. Don't know much on taste yet though, will be smokin' them this weekend. We also really like Sahuaro and Spanish Spice. Once again, we love to roast them, esp. smoke roast.

All Ficus carica want a sunny position, there aren't ones for sun and others for shade. But maybe the 5 hour stretch is plenty - what are the other involved details of the planting site? Including in what way it is shaded the rest of time.