I hate when my Breadfruit tree gets straggly-wink. I was watching HGTV about finding a home in PR. In one back yard was a pair of deep green Breadfruit trees. They have a sculptural type of trunk and branching pattern. Every leaf looked perfect. Being in full sun surrounded by thick turf. Looked great.

I like the look of them. Mine had huge leaves, over 75 centimetres long. Then the irrigation failed and it dropped all it's leaves. I was worried it was a goner but it recovered although the leaves were smaller. Still grew tall and spindly. I'm hoping now that it's shorter it'll branch out and get the huge leaves again. Getting fruit would be a real bonus, I like it, but you can't get it in any of the shops I know.

NICE!! I think your tree will look SO much better in several months...I 've done that (pugged) my mango trees before, sometimes little to no leaves left like yours...I've had "freeze damage" force me to it and other times its for size management and it came back looking better than before in a few months :o)

Here's an example of one of my freeze damage mango...

Here it is 5 months later...very happy with the way it survived the freeze and came back looking great :o)

That's a great recovery for just 5 months. The tree's looking very healthy.

Thanks Tropic! Here's the tree taken in March...I have about 20 teeny tiny fruits on there...hoping some of them will make it to maturity :o)

That tree should be able to handle 20 fruit. When they get hundreds of small fruits they drop most of them. Normally here mangos are irrigated until they're 80% flowered. After that the irrigation is shut off. Because it's dry that time of year they're without water almost until fruit maturity. Too much water as the fruit's developing can cause a lot of fruit drop, or splits in mature fruit.

Oh...I agree with you that my tree can handle 20 fruits easily...what I meant was out of the 20 fruits that's there now I'm sure I'm going to lose some of them due to weather, rain, wind and just part of the normal fruit drop.
The reason why my tree doesn't have that many fruits is Unfortunately, only 1/3 of the tree bloomed...the other 2/3 flushed new growths...this tree should have at least a couple of hundred fruits on it (pea size) had it the whole tree bloomed... but the rest of the tree didn't stick to the blooming cycle lol...Se la vie!!

Beautiful! What a way to control that monster!!

We had a huge Soursop / Guanabana / Breadfruit tree in my backyard in the Caribbean. The only pruning we ever did was of the branches that rubbed too close to our prized avocado trees. Otherwise, we harvested the fruit from the roof of the hours, using a harvesting basket on an extender.

For those who are not aware, the leaves are medicinal, particularly for stomach maladies, including nausea. I used it and it alleviated pain caused by Camphylobacter / H. Pylori before I knew what it was. Of course that needs to be treated by an MD & triple antibiotics, but the tea helped significantly.

To make a tea, take 3 new (shiny) leaves, wash and place in a kettle containing 2 cup of water you've already boiled. Allow to steep 15-20 minutes.

It is amazing the different remedies we have growing in the garden.

This is the latest photo of the shoots tied down. The 2 largest are now almost parallel to the ground. I left the third, much smaller, to let it grow a bit more first.

Nice growth!!

Thanks. 3 main branches out of the trunk should be enough. The first 2 are growing so vigorously I hope they don't overshadow the 3rd one and have it wilt. There's still about 2 really small ones but unlikely to come to anything. I'm hoping in the next month or 2 to get the huge trees overshadowing the Breadfruit removed. That's what caused the tree to get so spindly in the first place.

tropicbree -- it's hard to see from the photos but it seems there are many tall trees around and shade off the light to the breadfruit, hence it tried to race up tall to the light. If this is correct then all branches eventually will want to race up.

That's right Sapote. Behind me taking the photo are some African Mahoganys about 30 metres tall with a spreading crown. They're the trees I'll be removing. They also have very invasive roots, so with them gone the Breadfruit should do a lot better.

TropicBreezent - just to let you know. The term "pug" as in: "to cut a tree way back", was coined after puglvr had to do some major surgery on that frost-damaged mango tree she showed you in the picture above.

Because of that, all of us in this forum and in another one, have now recognized her terminological contribution to the plant kingdom..... So instead of searching for words like "savagely pruned" you can now say "pugged" and we'll all know exactly what you mean!

):

Myamberwoofie

Lol...Thanks Mangodog! :o)

Well, live and learn! I knew pug as a type of dog. Also in reading I've seen references to a "pug of tobacco" (I think that related to chewing tobacco). Thanks for the edification.

Thanks Mangodog -- I was wondering why "pug" the mango.

Tropic, how are you breadfruit trees doing now?
Pics please....lol