Was the fruit you refer to very sweet, smaller than normal, and highly flavored? I've been told that the best fruit in CA is grown dryland in areas with winter rainfall, deep soil, and old drought tolerant trees. That says the exact same thing to me that you stated above. @Fruitnut, Yup, exactly, especially with the sultana style grapes. Although with some fruit it's more to it than just small and sweet like with the grapes, for example pomegranates can get pretty complex flavors on the spectrum of sweet to tart when they're in the middle there of both and when the pits in the seeds become negligible instead of hard as wood chips- or when a nigra mulberry is just huge and so juicy but still extremely flavorful or maybe you've seen here but I haven't when a fig is so ripe the red pink nectar is oozing out from the bottom hole or when a pomegranate bursts open on the tree from the sun fully ripening it not bursting open from a disease or because of excess rainfall. But yeah, definitely a trend of smaller and sweeter exists I'd say- another common example of that would be the strawberries- they're tiny/mushy not aesthetically pleasing at all compared to grocery store strawberries here looking epic and beautiful... but the taste is something else with the small ones. This phenomenon of not watering the wild fruit (which are usually in not so easy places to go pick the fruit) has a name for it in Iran- "bash" lots of different fruit can be "bash" meaning grown wild in drought like conditions. I suspect the trees are pretty old too. I think pomegranate exists like this too- I've had fig and grapes bash before. All that being said, I've had some of my best fruit experiences here too. I was actually born in Virginia am pretty proud of our watermelon and peaches here :). The mid-Atlantic and South can grow very delicious fruit- I've always been impressed with how good fruit can taste in the U.S. once it's actually grown right instead of bought from a typical grocery store. BTW lots of fruit is now being imported to Iran along the same lines of typical grocery store fruit here and it's messing up the market for good tasting local fruit. I'm afraid in very short time if not already typical Iranian fruit markets will be worse than grocery store fruit here... before they all see the light again and start going old school/eco-friendly/green/homegrown/local/organic what have you like what's happening here.

I just wanted to post that I was out at the National Arboretum a few weeks ago. The large Q. acutas looked like they sustained some damage from teh past winter. Some twig and a few branches died back. Sad to see. But they will certainly survive. The Q. salicina looked like it had NO damage at all surprisingly. I have never seen acorns on them. Interestingly the Q. phillyreoides had some acorns. No apparent dieback. They all looked rather shrubby to me and not large single trunked trees. L. henyri and Q. myrsinifolias looked just fine. Q. glauca specimens at the Arboretum have all had a rough go of it over the years. Numerous diebacks. Pretty pathetic. They should really not be grown up here. But maybe they got some northern provenance stock that they wanted to try. I didn't see where they were from. Unrelated, but all the hollies looked great. Even Ilex latifolia. The Ilex latifolia in my yard looks great as well. No apparent winter damage. A small amount of leaf spot but overall I was very pleased. This post was edited by dave_in_nova on Fri, Oct 17, 14 at 10:33

Bumping this thread to report that...not surprisingly...the Azara is dead as a doornail. As is my Escallonia 'Apple Blossom' or whatever it could be. FWIW it was definitely hardier than 2-3 other Escallonias I'd tried...'Frades' being one of them...and had persisted since 2006, having variable winter damage each year but returning quickly in spring. I suppose it could still sprout from the roots, but the lowest stems, unlike any prior years, are like driftwood now. OTOH, both of them were some of the only Chilean shrubs to not mind our summers, and, when I'm in the mood again (not this year) I will probably reorder them. I think the novelty of having a plant from every continent is appealing; though I have a few Brazilian plants like Fuchsia regia (which might not return, but I doubt it...I've observed multiple times that even young plants put down roots 10-12") there was something really cool about being able to say a plant came from Chile. I might as well wrap up my antipodal/California plant deaths here: Grevillea victoriae - utterly amazing, looks better than some zn 7 rated rhododendrons. Is acting like it wants to be become a tree, so I've started limbing it up. Grevillea juniperina - more injured, but still alive Eucalyptus parvula - had been one of the better Eucs. for me. E. neglecta just gets roasted by the wind here. E. lacrimans was the hardiest but died after 14" of rain fell over 2 days one September. Anyhow it got to about 15' tall. After first round of 3F, was showing very little injury and foliage still smelled alive and was turgid. However, cold outbreak after cold outbreak took their toll, and the last time any of it seemed alive was probably late February. Then, the cold March finished that off. I suppose the roots could sprout, but I doubt it. Ceanothus 'Concha' - dead; had been in garden in since 2007 and showed light to moderate injury. In a raised bed on a south wall...about the best circumstances for it, because it protected it from winter wind and summer rain. Probably will retry, some day. I really wish someone would do more east/west crosses, or even just offer 'Henri deFosse' which is like a more saturated 'Gloire de Versailles' and would have been more likely to survive the winter in that same spot. Fremontodendron 'Ken Taylor' - dead, although it still had some green foliage until this week. (NB we are having yet another cold outbreak - the 15th since this winter started? But I luckily escaped freezing again) Was in a similar spot, but even more protected from rain by a wide eave on my garage. Even managed to bloom a couple years. I think it went into winter already dying, because last summer's consistent moisture - though loved by camellias and rhododendrons - was not to its liking and it had started to show leaf drop in autumn. Unlike the Ceanothus, I'm unlikely to repeat this experiment, but it was interesting. This winter was off-the charts cold. I've had, for example, a Rosemary 'Hill Hardy' since early 2006. Never shown a lick of damage. I was warned a few years ago by that seasoned impresario of midatlantic experimental gardening - initials A.H. for those of you in the know - that 1994 completely destroyed a giant rosemary of his. Mine was about 8 ft. X 6 ft. and 4ft. tall. So back in 2010 I pulled a runner from it and planted it right next to my house's foundation. (The mother plant was still somewhat sheltered, but about 8' from the house) Well, the mother plant? Utterly dead. I just took a chainsaw to it, to clear it out. The main stem had gotten to 5 inches wide, but even down in the layer of dead needles, the stems, trunks and runners were completely dehydrated and easily split open by pulling. Dead as can be. But the plant about 8 inches from the foundation still has some green leaves, albeit only 10-15%, and looks like it will probably pull through. (if the stems were killed, the green would no longer be, especially given the cold windy spring) A Cupressus arizonica 'Carolina Ice'? So cold and windy here that the foliage on the north side of it is burned! oh btw - not tree/shrub related, but on the antipodal front...a collection of rare montane Rhodophiala species has survived. Not the typical oxblood lily, but I do have one and it survived too. OTOH, it's looking like certain South African bulbs and rhizomatous forbs are gone, including some borderline priceless ones I'd rather not discuss in detail. This in a way is not surprising: eastern South Africa can have the odd cold outbreak when a front penetrates far to the south, but there isn't snowcover, generally, - Tiffendell ski resort has to make most of theirs and they are in the part of ZA most likely to have permanent snow cover. Winters can be so dry even in the montane areas that there are brush fires. OTOH, the southern tip of South America is much closer to Antarctica, and those bulbs probably come from places where, even though there is snow cover, the ground still freezes. So yes some things like Dieramas can survive the air temps taking a brief dip to 0F. While this winter had permanent, deeply penetrating cold, even with the snowcover, it was too unlike what they are used to. Cold, moist and frozen solid for almost 2 months, when what they want is mild, dry, and unfrozen.

Responding to HU-128893663: Hi. I have just bought a house in the hills north of Greenville, South Carolina, and would love to plant there a few of the baby mango trees that pop up every year around our big mango tree in Miami. Is this a fool’s errand? It would be great to hear how your experiment turns out, and whether you have any advice as to how to go about it. Many thanks.