Ugh, 18 degrees tonight. I think tonight might finish of my already heavily damaged avocado's. I have them a little better protected this time and am going to place a few hot water bottles at the base every few hours throughout the night. I am hoping that will get them through the night. I was really hoping to get a few years growth on these things before we had such bad cold spells during the winter.

SB- The pollen should be pretty obvious. The stamen, initially, look very plump, then they change to look dried out. When they look dried out/dusty, that is when the pollen is set to go. I had a ton of males all over, so the pollen was everywhere. The brush looked like it had yellow paint on it at times. If you gently flick the brush with your fingernail (in direct sunlight is best visibility) you'll see a small cloud of them. you could always pollinate the same flower several times like I did...just to be sure. Jay- sorry to hear about that. At least you know it'll yield for you soon...after another growing season. My tree is still dropping fruit. I'm guessing the mortality ratio is around 75% right now. The fruits that are growing are plumping up nicely though.

Js, I wonder if that's what happened to my Sweetheart blooms last year? I didn't know the difference between male and female flowers(still not sure) so I didn't know what to look for. Maybe all I had was female flowers and they never got fertilized, could be why I never had a single one form into fruit? Just a guess... According to them, "the male flowers typically open before females on lychees" Below is a link to a close-up pic of set Lychee Female Bloom...click on it to really enlarge it... Here is a link that might be useful: Closeup of set female bloom... from Lycheesonline

Lychees are self-fertile and are pollinated by insects and wind.