posted 14 years ago
I have a loquat tree that is probably 15-20 years old. It is a lovely tree, but has fire blight or something else that causes most of the fruit to turn black, shrivel, and fall off before maturing. Other trees in the neighborhood get 10x or 50x more than I do. Just got a cultivar that is supposed to have much larger fruit than the average loquat - will let you know in a few years if that works out.
Just got a nice book called "Florida's Best Fruiting Plants" (Charles Boning) that has pretty good coverage of 80 different types that can be grown in my state ... a few things are not so exotic (citrus, watermelon) but it does cover many less common and unusual plants. The lychee and longan are a bit too sensitive to cold for my part of the state, but there are many choices adapted to any part of the sunshine state.
I have figs, elderberry, pear, citrus, olive, feijoa, strawberry guava, muscadine grapes, persimmon, prickly pear, pittaya, and a few other things. My jujube tree didn't make it - was out of town for a while and no rain fell. Tried apples, too far south, were not reliable even though they are supposed to be low-chill types. Tried nectarines, too susceptible to disease.
Wishlist includes Cherry of the Rio Grande, jaboticaba, carambola, che; I might experiment with papaya as an annual, or with some of the cold sensitive plants later.