I've been told by friends who live on the Big Island of Hawaii, whose lychees I savored and coveted, that they won't grow in Southern California - so I think you might have even more difficulty in the Bay Area. The place to check is with the Calif. Rare Fruit Grower's Association - if anyone can tell you for sure, they can. A link to their website is below. Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: Lychee link

According to the CRFG:

"Lychees require seasonal temperature variations for best flowering and fruiting. Warm, humid summers are best for flowering and fruit development, and a certain amount of winter chilling is necessary for flower bud development. Most varieties need between 100 and 200 hours of standard chilling (32° - 45° F). Cool winters with low rainfall [!] are ideal for lychees. The trees become more hardy as they age. Mature trees have survived temperatures as low as 25° F when fully hardened off. Young trees may be killed by a light frost. Lychees can be successfully grown in frost-free coastal areas of California. There are trees in San Diego, California that are over 90 years old with no sign of decline in sight. It first fruited in Santa Barbara in 1914. They can be grown for a short period in a large container."

Joe

Thanks, Joe - I guess I'll try one here in my "frost-free, coastal" garden! The fruit is so wonderful, the tree is worth coddling a bit. "Winters with low rainfall" probably explains why they do well on the dry Kona side of the Big Island.

I want to try to find a Jujube as well - beautiful tree, with interesting, delicious fruit. There's a couple of fine old specimens at the Huntington.

Lychees certainly will grow in most mild Southern California climates, as the CRFG "Fruit Facts" entry indicates. But, from what I understand, the trees are reluctant to flower and fruit in that region -- the climate is not entirely to their liking. But it is certainly worth trying, if you can accept that any plant(s) may not fruit regularly.

Lychees in the S.F. Bay Area are only for envelope-pushing daredevils. I know of a few people who are attempting them, and it is possible to overwinter them in favorable microclimates. I have not encountered widespread accounts of fruiting plants -- although I have heard, anecdotally, of lychees being fruited outdoors in the Santa Clara area.

As for where to get one: Menlo Growers in Gilroy (open by appointment only) does usually carry trees, but they are relatively expensive -- I would guess in the $75 range for a plant in a 15 gallon pot. Regan's Nursery in Fremont might also possibly and occasionally have lychee trees, but, again, they would not come cheap.

Only buy one if you don't mind (potentially) losing an expensive plant in a bad winter cold-snap.

I've got a young Lychee tree that is fully leafed out and vibrant looking right now, in mid January. But it's been mild this year so far.

It flowered well last year but never fruited. A friend told us her dad in Irvine hand pollinates his and gets fruit, so I will try that next flowering.

In South Florida where I used to live, Lychees are a commercial crop and very good. Someone in my family had a whole grove. However, crops are sporadic and 7 years between crops is not unheard of. I believe the problem is getting the right pollinator at the right time. This has a lot to do with the high price of good lychees.

However, I have yet to see or taste a fruiting CA lychee, but I won't be shocked if they turn out to be like the Mexican Lychees I bought at market last year- lousy. The tree can live, maybe it can fruit, but climate can effect fruit quality. I'll find out eventually I guess.

Also most of the CA Lychee trees I see seem to spend a lot of the year with leaves with brown tips, or dropped leaves. Not so attractive.

thanks to patrick, here is what I found from crfg. no listing in the bay area but in ca. thought I should share the info: http://www.crfg.org/nurlist.html (notice you can get others like longan etc.) fruit facts: http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/lychee.html
ashok, $75 is not bad considering it would cost $50 just to get the trees into ca from fl, say.
thanks everyone for your info. If getting fruit is difficult, may be certain varieties do better than others here in the bay area? I'll have to look into that.

Gods Little Acre Nusery
they carry all kinds of tropical fruit trees.

19810 Almaden Rd
San Jose, CA
(408) 927-8868

ryc22 this is a serious question, not a criticism. I've been part of various chat rooms and internet forums for almost 20 years and never have I seen so many resurrected posts as here on GardenWeb.

This thread is more than nine years old. How did you come across it and decide to reply? Did you do a search on lychees and find it? Did you see the date and decide to respond anyway? I'm really curious about why GardenWeb has such a big case of Walking Dead syndrome.

Kentc, what is wrong with resurrecting an old thread? We can always continue the discussion and add more information to them. GardenWeb has a ton of old threads with invaluable information. In fact, I usually find myself reading threads from over a decade ago with relevant information. If someone has something to add, why not continue in an old thread? Especially if it's a little tid bit information that would not stand well alone in it's own thread.

I think it beats creating a bunch of threads and having the information spread out with dozens of threads that one would have to sift through to research a certain topic. Granted, that is borderline spam or probably is spam posting, but otherwise I would find this information helpful if I was looking to buy lychees; That person just provided a source that I may consider.

Just my two cents.

kentc, it's not a spam. I was Goggling Lychee varieties that will be best for the bay area. I was looking for dwarf variety and the search result showed this thread pertain to SF Bay Area. There wasn't too many search results for the SF Bay area, this is probably why this old thread showed up. I did not pay attention to the dates.

I never said there is something wrong with it, nor did I say it couldn't be useful. I said that in about 20 years of participating in internet forums that cover a range of topics I've never seen more resurrected threads than here at Gardenweb and I wondered why that was, so I asked a question. Thanks ryc22 for answering it.

Kentc, sorry if I got too carried away but if you're questioning ryc22 on how old a thread is, I just assumed you were biased against bumping such old threads. I just don't want others to be discouraged from doing this. I love it when others bump up really old threads and if I can see the discussion continue on. Anyways, enough of going off topic.

I have read Lychee seeds are easy to sprout. I saw two little Lychee plants being sold in a smaller specialty nursery, but they were very expensive. Another problem with Lychee is it generally takes 8-14 years from the time it is a seedling before you will see any fruit, so it takes some patience. Another issue is that Lychee seeds may not grow true to the parent, similar to many varieties of oranges. I'm not sure exactly what this means in this case, but I would hate to have something planted and then find out 15 years later the fruit is not as good as normal commercial varieties of Lychee.

As to whether a Lychee tree would grow well in Southern California, I have no doubt it would, so long as it gets regular watering so it does not dry out or get scorched during the hot dry summers. The only issue might be the minor chill factor, that could reduce the yield of fruit, but I expect that problem would be no different from growing apricots, and people here have done it.

The main reason Lychees do not grow well in Southern California is lack of humidity. So in one way, at least, a Lychee tree might even grow better in San Francisco than say San Diego. However, without the higher summer temperatures the Lychee fruit is unlikely to reach full ripeness in San Francisco, so they may not taste as good.

If anyone is thinking about trying to grow Lychee is San Diego, I would advise giving it some protection from the midday sun. San Diego is a fairly hot dry climate, and in this climate full sun can be rather desiccating to many tropical plant species.

Lychees- known types- do fine in soucal. I've seen photos of tree's loaded with fruit that the owner said were good. Fullerton arboretum grows them for one.

The bay area might need a hot wall..but I've never tried them so I can't say for sure.