Hi Maro
I planted one last summer in sharp drainage. It lived throughout the worst winter in quite some time with very little dieback. I live very close to the Cascade foothills.
I bought it at Sunnyside nursery in Marysville. I was getting in my car to leave and noticed it planted in one of their display gardens doing very well. I went back and bought one!

I have one also, growing in a container. Lost a bit of foliage over the winter but looks pretty good, all things considered :-)

Thanks for positive replies! You each have one that is alive and well, one north of me and one south. That's a good sign.

Put in 2 (was told they need each other to make flowers) Dec 05. One died immediately that winter. The other suffers browning and leaf drop when it gets really cold, and very slowly recovers. I'm not having the best of luck with this plant.

This is the kind of info I'm reading - very diverse from place to place, even in the same yard. The hardiness zone stated usually starts at 8, so we're probably dealing with microclimates. Would that be correct?

I'll plant it anyway and hope for the best. :)

There are different cultivars and i think that makes a big difference. I wanted Nikita from One Green World because I had heard it was a little earlier blooming/ripening and hardier. They were out when I ordered 3 years ago and I settled for 2 "seedlings". They are very nice robust plants but have had a fair amount of bronzing of leaves the last 2nd and 3rd winters. Very little leaf loss but they lose the nice leaf color and keep these leaves changing the appearance. I'm at about 1000' elevation and it has been down to 10 degrees and significant east wind as they are unprotected. jwww

Not very hardy, rather unexpected success (so far) in/near foothills may be due to warmer summer conditions ripening growth better than near salt water. And, yes, fairly wide variation in genetic hardiness of seedlings, if like those of gums (Eucalyptus) could be a factor - and site conditions surely would be, a warm, well-drained site producing markedly different results than a cool damp one.

I'll add my experience - I planted one in October 1998 on heavy clay soil in the coldest part of my garden. The following December, when the temperature dropped to 12F and most of my eucalyptus collection froze to the ground, the pineapple guava had some leaf damage but wasn't seriously injured. Since then, it has never been damaged, but it is a slow grower for me.

I don't think 12F is below expected minimum for this species.

No, but I was impressed at the time because it wasn't established.

This past winter was the worst my garden has seen since 1998.

I did plant mine in April, not a seedling but a good-sized plant. It's grown and developed a lot and looks beautifully healthy right now at about 2' x 2'.

A nursery I visited recently flat out told me it wouldn't survive, that I should mulch it and wrap it with bubble wrap if there was to be any chance of survival, at best less than five years. Any further comment on this? (I liked this nursery anyway.)

Regardless, I'll hope for the best. Looks like it's going to be a luck thing! Thanks for all the comments. I'll let you know how things look in April.

When it comes to plants whose hardiness is questionable or not well known, many nursery people tend to err on the side of caution to avoid the problem of angry customers/liability. ("Why did my plant die??? You told me it would grow here!!! blah blah").... on the other hand, sometimes nursery people need to educate themselves further and not just regurgitate what they have read in overly conservative reference books. I'm sure it will be fine in April if we don't have a monumentally severe winter.

I saw a big Feijoa in Poulsbo the other day and could hardly believe it. It looked great and was blooming.

I've had mine in a container for several years - at least 5 - so they can survive some rather harsh conditions. Admittedly, parts of my garden may have some rather distinct microclimates, but my Feijoa seems to have faired better than some other, supposedly more hardy plants. And the flowers, when they appear, are really quite beautiful and exotic looking. And in response to another post, you may need two to produce fruiting, but they flower quite readily all alone.

There's some pretty far along ones here and there in Seattle as well. And lots of new ones are being planted. This is the kind of plant that turns out to be tender over the long term, or if you are trying to grow it out in the foothills or valleys miles away from the Sound. More or less OK as long as it stays in something like the normal 10-20F range during winter, but liable to go at some point in the single digits.

Perhaps the Poulsbo feijoa was having a minor re-bloom if the "other day" was recent. I have never had a rebloom on mine; if not in full bloom by 4 July, the fruit does not have time to enlarge and ripen in my yard.

The fruit drop of 17/18 November on my shrub was 57 fruits weighing nearly 6 pounds. We eat them every evening for a dessert course.

Excellent!

I bought a few varieties from One Green World and they're all blooming in Salem now. I also bought two 'Nazemetz' from a different nursery that look good, but no blooms yet.