There is a fruit nursery on Pine Island called the treehouse nursery. They have an excellent variety of tropicals for sale, especially mangos and lychee. I have purchased all of my mango trees there except my mallika which I found at lowes. It had scale and I got that tree for $4. One spray with neem oil cleaned it right up. It was 8ft and full on bloom prior to this years freeze. It lived but is much smaller now. That tree had the Pine Island Nursery tag on it. The pine island nursery is on Pine Island rd in Homestead. I have been to that nursery as well. I was not as impressed with them as The treehouse. Too commercial. The treehouse nursery has a fruit stand opened June - at least August. It is not at the nursery but on the way. That is where I have found the different varieties of fruit. There are a couple of other stands that people have at there house as well. The key is to get there very early when they open. There are alot of people that get their early to get there favorite mangos as well. Steve and Jessie are the most knowlegeable. I did call Steve to see what varities they had and they had a very poor year for mangos. The asian varieties did the best. They have nam doc mai, florigon, bram kai meu, po pyu kalay, mun khun si, and so on. They also have the Kent and Tommy Atkins, although they say Tommy Atkins are best to through at cars. I plan on going the next two weekends so Ill post what I find in a couple weeks. They did say they had 4 varieties of lychee.

Hi Jofus...I put a link below from the Tropical Fruits forum, there are so many great varieties to choose from its so difficult to pick one. Hopefully, by reading some of the post from there(there are tons of good info) you might find something that sounds good for you. Good luck with your decision. You can't hardly go wrong with almost all of them. Here is a link that might be useful: Best Mango Post....

Jofus, H.depot and Lowe's sells the Conduit(electrical department) and comes in a 10ft length for what its worth. Of course you would have to bury at least 18" or so in the ground(so you're pushing your trees that are 7'-8'. I'm not familiar enough about the water thing, so I can't comment on it. As far as trees that are over 10 ft...I don't think any mango(tropical trees) actually get "immune" to freeze. Its just more likely they will "fare" much better and not die because the roots are more established. I've seen some trees in my neighborhood that were over 20 ft that had "severe" frost damage from last years freeze, but they are all alive and have regrown at least half of what they lost. You will still lose leaves and some of the branches, but a much better chance you will not kill the tree? My Mango and Lychee trees were fine w/out any type of protection to 34°-32° as long as its only a couple of hours or so. The only reason I covered mine when the forecast was 34° was just to be overly cautious...just in case the weatherman was wrong and it dipped a couple of degrees lower. The first year I planted it...I covered them when the temps were forecast to 35° or lower...not to take any chances. Last year I didn't cover them until the forecast was going to be 32° or below. You should have no problems at all at 48°... Good luck!

Halfwaythere1 : Great pics, am jealous ! ( smile ) Thanks Jane for your input. You may have hit on something,..maybe. I have been dealing with the anthracnose for years. Turns out this is the first year I didn't spray the Liquid Copper Fungicide since 2011. When I started spraying the copper it was AFTER I first saw the visible fungus on one of my trees,..panicked a bit, quickly read up on it, then ran out and bought the LCF and sprayed all my trees twice ( 2 - 3 weeks apart ). Then got in the habit of spraying it shortly after the pannicles show up whether there was a sign of anthracnose or not. However, have had a year or two with visible anthracnose on one tree but not the others and those without the fungus produced a fine crop. I enjoyed the next 5 tears of moderate to good harvests as my young trees matured. But last year I cut down my 14 ft tall Nam Doc Mai after I noticed a stubborn fungus on it's internal limbs/trunk for two consecutive years and was unable, despite 2 sprays per year, to remove it. Have seen no other evidence of anthracnose since but sprayed all the trees twice anyway, - then had my best harvest ever last year. I saw no evidence of the fungus this season, so took a chance and didn't spray. Still not sure if that's the reason my trees dropped their fruit tho. So what does it all mean ? For me, just to make sure I " touch all the bases ", I will resume my Liquid Copper Fungicide sprays next year. Craig : Am wondering if you sprayed down there in Stuart. puglvr1 : Am sure you know more than I do and have your own solutions based on your particular observations and where you live in Florida. Thanks for the photo, saw none of that " powdery mildew " here, just he distinctive anthracnose. Bottom line, my mango trees here are still quite young ( inground 1 to 5 yrs ) so I cannot get too panicky right now. Next year will however, go back to spraying the copper and blaming 'Ol Mother Nature for being too fickle ! ( smile )