Thanks mrclint for the link and stanofh I do have a tr hovey also that I got for a cheap price that was very reasonable. I got it from Florida hill nursery for $6.99+shipping. As I understand it was quite hard to get one of these baby when they first were release, but now a lot of nursery carries them. I've also seen them at quite a bit higher price on logees site for about 3x as much, but not sure how big their plant they offer are. Mine was about 12 inches. I don't think I'm going to cover up and just see how they do and if I only get green ones before winter comes, I could just make green papaya salad...yummy(mouth watering). If you might want to try your hands at one for a reasonable price I suggest Florida Hill Nursery or Well Spring Nursery.

I'm on the opposite side of the bay where summers are warmer. On average right now every day is in the 75-80f with lows around 60f. S.F. famously cool summers tend to be 65f-70f with lows all summer in the mid to upper 50's. Today,80f in Hayward,65f for a HIGH temp in San Francisco. S.F. does Mork have one advantage- winters are a frost free 10b. I get only 10a winters. Some years for me are frost free,but not most..so far. Houston summers are more like the Central Valley in Northern California..near 100 all deep summer until September. Stockton to Sacramento to Red Bluff have blazingly hot summers..but low humidity.

He posted the photo. Funny thing is- look at the leaves. Dark Green,but considerably smaller then in soucal or of course the southeast and Florida. About what I see with my 1' plants growing in the ground. Its the result of on the very edge of climate needs. I hope to get the same. I planted a few last summer and ...they look perfect. My previous tries in 80's 90's and after, all never made it past December.

I've never seen a mature coconut anywhere it gets down to 22F, and I don't think any of those locations where coconuts and mangoes grow usually see very much below 32F, if even the upper 20's. California is full of microclimates. On a cold Winter night I can walk for 2 miles and go from 50F at my house in Fallbrook to 30F in the canyons. At my old place in Santa Cruz, 2 miles would be the difference between 40F and 27F. In 2007, Fallbrook ranged from 34F in the hills to 14F in the canyons. The differential in temperature is only related to topology by how wind exposed a given location is. Hill tops are more exposed to wind. Desert location are often much windier during cold spells, but again, wind exposure varies greatly from spot to spot. David Carp writes in Sunset Magazine about the devastation of the 2007 freeze on the mango orchard in the desert, he says: All these challenges paled before the meteorological nightmare that occurred this past January. In the worst freeze to strike the California desert since 1937, temperatures plunged to prolonged durations of 26°. The cold proved even more dangerous than heat for the mango trees. Groves were blackened, with many trees killed and the remaining ones badly damaged. Production this year may collapse to 250,000 pounds, just 6 percent of the 4,000,000 pounds anticipated before the freeze. See http://www.sunset.com/travel/california/mango-madness. As you can see, 26°F in 2007 suggests they're above 32F on other years. With that being said, when it comes to coconuts, it's not freezes that kills coconuts in the coastal zones, it's wet Winters. A true tropical climate is dry in the Winter and wet in the Summer. Perhaps the deserts are more suitable to simulate that sort of environment with added irrigation since it's easier to keep the ground dry in the Winter out there. One has to ask oneself, given that people have been trying for years to grow these things in California, why are there so few large specimens around? The answer lies in the fact that California experiences catastrophic freezes every 30 years or so, even in Southern California. The folks with the mango orchard made a big mistake to not have installed infrastructure that can mitigate damage from such a freeze.