Chrobrego,

I understand your pain ... I have six lychee trees in the ground. This year, only one is sending off bloom spikes! Last year, two of them bored fruit.

That said, if yours is in the pot, or is still small, give it a little more time. Usually, even if they bloom while small, they most likely cannot carry the fruit to maturity.
Yes, I have had days when I wanted to get back at them. This, I did by buying myself a whole bunch of lychees from the Asian produce ... There, I got my fruit!!! ... lol.

My Hak Ip and Sweetheart are both pushing out bloom panicles. They are just now starting to kick it into gear. Still awhile before they bloom.

The longan trees here bloom right after the lychee. The lychee season is over when the longan bloom. I haven't seen any of the longan bloom so I am still waiting for the lychee to flower. Last year the lychee bloom as late as early March.

My lychee is finally setting some fruits now...

My honey bees were busy working the lychee flowers today.

Nice DM!! Congrats!!

Pug/DM, I'm very jealous. I have four lychee trees in ground with tons of new flush and no darn flower panicles. The funny thing is the little emperor that I keep in a pot is pushing out fruit again this year -- like clockwork. The problem is I'll likely only get 4-5 fruit from the little thing.

Sorry to hear than Chrobrego...I truly feel your pain. Not sure why your lychee trees didn't bloom this year... you probably had about the same chilling hours that I did...when mine started to flush I wasn't sure if they were going to be blooms since it was a very warm winter but once they started to grow it was "mixed" blooms and new growth. Got lucky I guess!

Very nice, Puglvr and Dangermouse! I really enjoy seeing your little fruitlets, Puglvr and the lush blooms on yours, Dangermouse.

Chrobrego .. sorry to hear about your lychee situations. I'm in the same boat with you. Altogether, I have 6 lychees in the ground and only 1 is blooming now! That said, I'm thinking if it was due to me not fertilizing them these past months as I became really busy with a lot of things .. and not being able to catch up with the needs of my garden ... Not sure. But, I do make sure they have enough water.

I'll try to post pictures of my big Brewster in bloom. The blooms are mostly way up on the higher branches, so I can't quite see yet he formation of the fruit yet. Will need a ladder to do that. I've been trying to keep it small, but it keeps wanting to shoot up after each trim .. lol.

Bananafan, I would love to see it. My Brewster is too small to expect much from, but it would be nice to see what I can anticipate in a maybe a couple of years time.

My Sweetheart lychee is not blooming yet but lots of new growth. This is the 2nd year since planting so we'll see how it does. My neighbors giant old lychee has not started blooming yet. Not sure of the variety but it is a dependable producer possibly planted in the 70's. I pass another lychee close by on my daily commuter. It is loaded with blooms.

Thanks bananafan!! Now I just have to worry about the critters eating them all before me **sigh**

TcG, I heard sweetheart is a very good tasting lychee but can take a little longer to be a consistent producer...I heard it "can" take up to 7-10 years to really get going...but maybe yours will be the exception :o)...Best of luck!!

Here are some pictures of my BB (Big Brewster) from yesterday:

I could hardly see any fruit forming yet. Down here we have the web worm problem. DH has been working hard to spray the lychees and also mango trees.

Tree is about 12 ft tall -- excuse the unsightly mess behind. DH trying to construct a potting shed behind. Poor BB looks very cluttered there. I know ... what to do when there's so little space in the yard, living in an urban space while being a tropical-fruit-garden-wanna-be ... lol.

The other lychee that is fruiting is a Sweetheart ... with 3-4 fruitlets hanging on (if you call that fruiting) :) The plant seems to be infested with some white flies? I'll have to clean it up when I get to it. I'll probably plant it to the ground soon.

Puglvr, you're right about Sweetheart taking some time to establish itself. I think I've waited at least 5-7 years (don't remember exactly) to see it finally bearing edible fruit for the first time. The first few years, there had always been attempts to blooms, but blooms would always die off without fruit formation. I also blame it on the web worm infestation. They really are kill-joy garden pests. They also attack on my mangoes. But, we now got the BT to get rid of them. It's been quite a bit of a help, but I do hear you .. in order to eat of our fruit of labor, we have to go through so many hoops. At the end of the day, I think it's still worth it to see the gift of nature's wonder from the Maker.

TCgardener, your lychee probably is still rather young. It's good that it's still flushing. Let it grow bigger and stronger so it can do better in its fruit bearing age. I do have a couple more Brewsters planted two years back. They're about 6-7 ft tall. They have not bloomed ever since in the ground. When they were in the pot, they did bloom. I think they're trying to adjust to the ground condition to get established .. I'm guessing here. Lychees I've learned from my years spent with them ... not that I've learned a lot. I'm a slow learner ... lol. But, one thing I've discovered is they're pretty temperamental on my side of the turf. I decided to separate them as odd year and even year bearers. This is true of my Brewster at least. It will persistently only bloom on odd years. Last year, two of them were blooming and I call them even years bloomers. Funny to think of it, but if they were to behave they way they behave ... I have no problems with them since I've planted altogether 6 of them in the ground. The only problem I've been having with was a Mauritius lychee that refused to bear fruit every single year .. One year, it had just a very scanty bloom that gave off 2-3 fruit despite being in the ground for 10 years and the biggest of all the lychees ... about 14-16 ft. I had to take it down to give way to another new plant. But ... that's just my luck. I do hope yours will in time bear the fruit that you've wanted.

When they do, it's really a great delight. Here's a picture of some of Sweetheart's crop last year. The rabbit just had to pose in the picture because he knew he would get to taste one if he behaved for the camera ... lol.

Bananafan, the Brewster looks great. I'm jealous. My small potted emperor has been my most reliable tree by far. The sweetheart keeps putting out a few blooms (not this year though), but nothing ever takes. The emperor is a champ though. Unfortunately, the fruit is a bit more bland than the Brewster, but again I suppose there is no such thing as a bad lychee.

GREAT pics banana!!!! Super cute rabbit :o)...

Bananafan,

You sure have some beautiful pictures! My little Sweetheart produced a total of 6 fruits last year half of them going to the critters. Really hoping for a better year but it was good for a taste test. My neighbors tree is a giant, we harvests the fruit from his patio roof with a picking pole. No idea what variety they are as he is not the original owner.

bananafan

awesome looking pics. hope you have a good harvest this year.

what have you been spraying to keep pests away?

what size pot is the sweetheart in?

Thank you guys for all your nice comments. :)

Puglvr, my bunny is 8 years old now ... how time flies.

TCgardener, is your Sweetheart still in the pot, or have you planted it in the ground already? Any pic to share? I know ... those critters are really an annoyance. Are you able to bring it indoor if it's in the pot, or perhaps use plastic food containers like those used to pack strawberries or blueberries to protect them from being stolen? I had to do that all the time, otherwise, I would be left with nothing. But, so nice you can pick the lychee fruit from your side of the fence. Maybe you can post a picture of it when it's fruiting. I'm sure it's a beautiful sight to behold.

Andi, I'm keeping my fingers crossed too, for a good harvest. The spray we're using is Thuricide. We just call it BT. You can read off the ingredient from the label here. It's a biological insecticide that doesn't contaminate the fruit unlike other kind of chemical based insecticide. The caterpillars eat it and then get sick and won't grow into maturity for more pest reproduction.

Credit and thanks to Puglvr for her feedback on the kind of infestation I was battling with a few years back. I didn't know why my lychee blooms would die off without forming fruit. This also includes all my mangoes. It's a tedious process trying to get rid of them. It has to be sprayed every once a week starting from when the bloom spike start peeking out.

My little potted sweetheart is in a 10" pot. I will plant it soon and then wait out for at least several more years for fruit production. I think when lychees are transplanted from pot to ground, they need time to get adjusted before actual fruit production and that sometimes could be years ... At least for mine, it seems more than a few years. If in the pot, they'll still try fruiting, but very often not enough for any crop. However, if lychee owners don't have space in the ground, the best thing is to keep them in a pot, at least 10" if not more for some kind of fruit production. If they don't produce enough for you, the best thing is to buy some from an Asian grocery store and stick them on their branches. Ok ... I'm being very silly here. I actually did that last year ... seeing that only two of my lychee trees were fruiting out of my 6 in ground ones and several other potted ones ... I decided to go out for a lychee shopping and came back with more than I could eat. But, one good thing is that I came back with a very unique variety which I later learned was a Duongphen (a very thin-skinned variety). I sprouted it and now it's a cute looking little guy:

That is SUPER Cute banana!!! Please keep us updated on its progress. I should plant one of my seeds and try to grow it into a "Bonsai" Lychee Lol...

Here is a picture of my lychee today.

Looking good Tony, I've heard that some people that live in S. Florida didn't get any blooms this year, just new growths...glad you're one of the exceptions :o)

Puglvr,

I made a search on Bonsai Lychee and came up with this video (link below). Wow, if it's really possible, that would be a cool thing to do :)

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=bonsai+lychee&qpvt=bonsai+lychee&view=detail&mid=A091F3F13BE6369E0B45A091F3F13BE6369E0B45&FORM=VRDGAR

Very nice fruit development you've got there, Tony. What variety is it?

my sweetheart put out a couple of mixed growths. I had tip pruned most of the flowers during early formation but a couple left over.

now there seem to be ants at the flowers. should I wrap the trunk and apply tangle wood to stop the ants?

The ants are probably going after the sweet nectar.

The ants are not a good thing, they keep the beneficial insects away and make the plant more vulnerable to aphids and sapsuckers.

Thanks for that link banana, that is SO cool!!! Wow!!!

It is a sweetheart. The sweetheart is the first to bloom here. None of my other lychee trees bloom. There wasn't much cold weather here in Miami this year.

This my Sweetheart lychee, its 6 ft tall this year. I bought in 6 2015 from a nursery called the Lychee Tree here in Stuart. I was apprehensive on planting it after seeing just how big my neighbors Lychee was. Finally planted it later that year. My neighbor with the monster size lychee is across the street not next door. I'll see if he will let me post a pic of it.

Hoping it doesn't take ten years to produce fruit.