Dragonfruit

Mulberry bush, loquat. California Rare Fruit Growers may have more information. We have a chapter in Orange County, and there are other county chapters as well.

Lychee. The 'Mauritius' variety has smaller fruits but is the variety that grows best in Southern California and produces reliably.

Bananas can also be grown, but I would recommend bringing them inside under grow lights during the Winter when the plants are still young.

Southern California has an excellent climate for growing citrus and pomegranates. I will quickly mention Quince (Cydonia oblonga) and loquat here as well. Maybe grapefruit, or seedless mandarins (like Satsuma or Kishu) are an excellent fruit tree to have in the yard.

If you want something truly exotic, I would recommend going over to the Tropical Fruit section and asking them about Mangosteen.

Many varieties of quince can be sliced thin and eaten with chili sauce vinegar and crushed peanuts. Quince makes an attractive tree in the yard and the big yellow fruits on the tree have the most wonderful fragrance (truly, I'm not exaggerating), even though quince is more of a cooking fruit. Get some good recipes and you won't be sorry you got a quince tree. 140 years ago practically every farm in America had a quince tree, but today the vast majority of Americans do not even know what quince is.

I heard it's hard to grow mangosteen in so cal, what's your opinion?

I've heard it is possible to grow them in Southern California (zone 10), but they take a lot of water.

Another one that can grow in Southern California is wax apple (Syzygium samarangense)

Just because you can grow some exotic fruits does not mean you will like the taste of them! I think step one should be determining what exotic fruits you like, then working off of that list to determine the ones that grow well here. Personally, I am not a fan of cherimoya, dragon fruit, quince or lychee. They are ok, but I am fine purchasing a single serving's worth every few years from my favorite market. What I would do with a yearly supply that an entire plant can produce, I would not know! (Bad memories of a house we rented that had 6 grapefruit trees. I hate grapefruit!)

gyr, I have fond memories of cherimoya ice cream in Chile many years ago.

Lol. I'm thinking of mangosteen, how's the taste of it? I already have a wax apple.

supposedly it has the flavor of peach and mango, the fruits are not that big and have a hard shell that needs to be cracked open

I would only get one for the novelty, since it is a very exotic fruit and rare. If you can find the right buyers, mangosteen fruit can also fetch a very high price

Another exotic fruit is Jamun (java plum). Most people who taste this fruit find it too astringent, but a pinch of salt can help bring out the sweetness. Children in India love to pick this fruit off the tree and snack on it, but the dark juice stains. The flavor of Jamun has been described by some as distantly reminiscent of blueberries. This is definitely one you want to taste first before you plant it. The trees can get quite large, and messy.

Do you guys know of any nurseries which sell mangosteen, rambutan and java plum?

If nurseries carried them, they wouldn't be rare and exotic, now would they?

Although rambutan certainly looks like an amazing exotic fruit on its exterior, in my opinion lychee tastes much better than rambutan.

Another one for you to consider is Chinese Bayberry (Myrica rubra), which is very popular in parts of China and Southern Japan. In shape and form, the fruit is very similar to that of Arbutus ("the Strawberry Tree"), but the color and flavor is like Blackberry.

Guava grows well in Southern California. I'm not sure if you would consider that exotic enough, since guava has become somewhat commonplace with the big influx of Latin American migrants. The fruits can usually be found in farmer's markets.

Rare fruits that are popular in other parts of the world

Lol. So where can I find them?

I have two types of guava, wax apple, stawberry, tangerines and orange.

I agree about tasting the fruit first to see if you like it. That's why you should go to a CRFG meeting in your area. It also would not be a good idea to plant something that takes a lot of water.

Don't get something from a friend who sneaked it in without inspection. That's how we ended up with HLB in southern California.

You will probably have to check with specialty nurseries, talk to growers and other rare fruit growers. With an online search, nurseries such as ONG Nursery sounded promising.

Fareed, it sounds like you have a nice collection. Do you have any photos of your garden, plants or fruit?

Rambutan is not possible,Breadfruit,Durian, and Mangosteen,Coconut are also out. BUT!,there are Mangosteen relatives that can be grown in soucal.

Mango is easy- all types. Papaya. Java Plum is hardy enough to grow up here in the bay area. Curry tree. Moringa.

Atemoya seems to be doable in soucal.

Exotic nurserys are the best way...Youtube has plenty of vids of exotic soucal plants. The list of what cant be grown is pretty short in souca..

If I had the room, I would definitely grow a quince. They have a wonderfully gnarled growth pattern and the flowers are amazing -- like an apple blossom, but two inches across. I had one grow from below the graft of a dead pear tree and the flower was bright pink with a white picotee edge. Also, I like to eat them and during their brief season my grocery store sells them for $1.99 each.

My quince tree just bloomed. The flowers do have a smell, the fragrance is not very strong but it smells kind of like a mix of sweet pea, violets, and jasmine. The big white flowers are tinged with a little bit of pink color as well.

(this is fruiting quince, Cydonia oblonga)

The fruits smell more amazing though.

The smell of the fruit is hard describe, but to me it smells like apple mixed with a particular fragrance note found in the smell of pears, kind of intense. There is definitely some ethereal powdery dry violet odor in there but it is also floral in a different way as well like the most fragrant apple. You do not even have to cut the fruit up for the smell to waft around.

The flavor of the fruit is excellent in my opinion, but the fruit can be hard to eat because of the hardness and texture. For me, it is like I want to keep eating the fruit even though I can't eat more than a small amount at a time because it is so astringent and hard. Some people have described the texture as like biting into a piece of balsa wood, haha (although there are some varieties that are better than others for eating raw). Quince is really considered a fruit for cooking however, and cooking changes its flavor and texture entirely, it becomes like a thickened baked apple with a pungent cough syrup like flavor (in a good way).

Quince is more suited to hot dry Mediterranean climates than apples or pears are, another reason you should consider growing them.

There is also Achacha (achachairu), some have said the flavor is somewhat similar to mangosteen, but more like a sherbert with a lemonade flavor.

Longan. They are also ornamental. Papaya's like Red Caribbean seem to get great reviews for flavor. Papaya's also are high in being ornamental.

Banana's..if you have decent water allotment.

Cherimoya you should strongly consider. Easy grower,big delicious fruit.

While longan and lychee are related, the flavor of longan is kind of bland, like honeydew melon. It doesn't have the characteristic floral rose aroma of lychee. While I have heard longan is more drought tolerant and a bit easier to grow, the fruits are also smaller and have a hard shell that's more difficult to crack open without breaking into the juicy fruit membrane inside.

Bananas can certainly grow in zone 10 Southern California, although they generally do not grow as well as they do in the tropics. People have gotten fruit but the fruit stalks do not appear as frequently.

There's a guy with a big starfruit tree growing in his yard in Lake Forest, CA. Starfruit tastes a whole lot better right off the tree than when I've tasted it from the supermarket (the rare occasions when they've had it). The fruit is kind of bland, in my opinion, a bit watery, sour, and very slightly astringent, but it also has a very compelling tropical-like flavor to it that makes me want to keep eating after I've taken a bite.

Our Sunset 18/19, USDA 9B backyard came with established fruit trees planted by the former owners. They include banana, guava, wax apple, jujube, loquat, papaya, pomegranate, orange, lemon, peach, plum, fig, Asian pear, Fuji apple, and some other citrus trees that we don't know what they are. We have enjoyed eating our loquat, papaya, plum, Asian pear, wax apple, and Fuji apple so far. Waiting for jujube to ripen.

Sometimes the taste of the fruit will depend on the variety also....my neighbor in Zone 23 sub-tropical Fallbrook grew a lot of cherimoya and sapote along with other fruits. I love sapote 'Suebelle', found un-named varieties lacking. He had some cherimoya that were delicious, pure sugar...and others that were not great. Though Hachiya and Fuyu persimmons are not really 'exotic', they're still my favorites and I miss being able to grow them here in Northwestern California.

I have an old Suebelle Sapote. It gives ripe fruit about all year. Sometimes heavy.

Why cant you grow Suebelle or Persimmons?. Neither need a hot climate.

Truth is I've assumed on the sapote and been told on the persimmons that there is not enough heat here....I'm zone 17, 3 blocks from the ocean...I've thought of trying it...on the South side of the house there's a long paved strip where I'm doing some raised beds and container veggies, etc...thinking it will give some extra heat, then we've done a garage addition with corrugated metal and I've thought I might get some reflected heat from that also. I have a feijoa there and am thinking fig also, perhaps the Olympian. I've seen Hachiya sold at the HD here, which means nothing of course.....

Dang, Stan...now you've got me reconsidering and thinking about how I can squeeze them in. I've read that the Fuyu does not do well in tubs due to the tap root. I've planted Filberts here, that will be fun, not grown those before, but those are the only fruiting trees I've planted other than one feijoa. I've planted other trees, but I have a small city lot now and already have two Dogwoods I'm trying to find room for.....I'll spend this evening considering the 'simmons and Sapote....

I've never had a good Hachiya persimmon, they have all been too astringent. Fuyu is good though. I don't know, a good mellow flavor, but after I've eaten one or two I don't really feel like eating any more. A tree would probably produce too much fruit for me.

Pomegranates also grow great in Southern California. Kind of exotic looking. Not many people eat them because they feel like it's too much work (maybe they don't know the proper technique to open it up and remove the inside arils without making a mess). Kind of funny, the CRFG fact sheet on pomegranate even says: "Consumer demand in this country is not great. More pomegranate fruits probably wind up as decorations in fruit bowls than are consumed."

Unfortunately the quality of the fruit and the flavor seem to rapidly deteriorate after about 2 or 3 weeks after the fruit has been picked, so many people may not know how good pomegranate tastes because the fruits or juice they tried was not truly fresh. (also there's a certain technique for making good-tasting juice, because if the rind is squeezed, or the seeds get blended, it will impart a less pleasant flavor)

Gypsy, Sue is a high elevation Sapote. Mine when young was in a 32 gallon rubbermaid in 1990's super freeze. 24f low and almost as bad for 10 days. It only lost twigs and thin branches.

Persimmons..well,I bet there is a whole world of subtropical fruit for cool climates. You up there in Eureka or so are in a a rare climate. That's why all the topics are on heat needy subtropicals on the net.

But mountains in the tropics? Must be more then just Sue and Babaco's..lol.

I can eat Fuyus every day and never tire of them. Hachiyas have always been used for drying and Persimmon Cookies and Persimmon Pudding...grew up in the San Joaquin with my grandmother's house having pomegranates. As kids we'd just crack them open on the road and gobble them. They can be 'seeded' under water for making jelly and not be messy. If I get visitors from SoCal who drive up rather than flying in, I can get someone to bring me a Suebelle....LOL...I tried a babaco once and didn't care for it. I have learned to eat my wild blackberries rather than cussing them and my blueberries and strawberries are doing well. Climate up here has changhed also. A friend who's lived here her whole life had a nursery and she said the weather has changed enough that her kids could have a 5 acre pumpkin patch whereas at one time they just couldn't grow them here. She's about 5 miles inland from me. We took a run over to White City, Oregon last week and it was around 100 degrees. It did not cool off appreciably until we were 10 miles from the coast on the way home. Hiouch or Gasquet, 10 and 20 miles inland from here would have plenty of heat for my persimmons...considerably colder in Winter also....

The Stan wisdom on those exotics too..something Fareed can keep in mind is...many exotic fruits in soucal are lighter baring then in the tropics. I would consider that if I want most per plant? Look at what is worth doing on California style orchard. Banana's ,Coffee,Mango's,Cherimoya's,Dragon fruit, are actually grown in small to large groves from Santa Barbara to San Diego. Others like Guava's and Sapote's,etc can be found for farmers markets.

If you have limited space (we all do),choose to make sure you get more then 3 fruits a year!

Unless you are growing something different for just fun. I try that every now and then.

My elderly neighbor in Fallbrook said that his Cherimoyas brought $25 a pound until the guy, sorry, don't know his name, in Santa Barbara planted a large grove / orchard of Booth cherimoya that were self pollinating. This was years ago...neighbor would go out and hand pollinate his trees. I would add also that I thought the scent of the flowers in the nearby area, to me, was worth growing the tree for even if it got no fruit....

I gypsy in the 80's grew Cherimoya from a seed cultivar known as "Safeway" ( kidding) to actually a 6' shrub that had sweet fruit and vanilla aroma blooms. I did hand pollinate too.

1990's freeze killed it. Why I never tried again until last year- more Safeway seeds i ..cant say why.

Oh, well...we go through spells of what we're currently interested in..waiting to see what seedlings prove to be is interesting, if we have the space and water to devote to what may turn out to not be very interesting. I read somewhere, maybe here? of someone growing her goji berries from seeds picked up off the floor in a Whole Foods market...I'm learning new plants up here, things spring up in my yard that I've not encountered before...one is apparently a gooseberry...I'll stick it in a tub, why not?

I am not in California, but if I were you, I would concentrate on tropicals and subtropicals that can take a fair degree of drought (not sure you are prepared to water for most of the year). You might also post this on the Tropical Fruits forum. I know you said "exotic" and don't think pomegranate or figs fit that description in California, but they do well in drier climates. I don't think anyone mentioned Tamarind, and that will take drought though not sure about you heat zone being adequate.

Some more to add: If anyone does plant Mulberry for the fruit, make sure you get Persian Black, because if you just taste anyone of the other varieties you may conclude that mulberries are not that good.

'Mauritius' is probably the most suited lychee variety to grow in Southern California (even though it has a smaller fruit size and the outer appearance not quite as attractive). It has more drought tolerance than the other common lychee variety 'Brewster'.

I don't know if you'd consider an Oro Blanco grapefruit exotic, but they grow well in Southern California. They're very sweet and mild and take more after a pomelo.