There are several varieties that can be successfully grown in containers...Ice Cream, Julie, Cogshall among a few good ones. Check out Pine Island Nursery. They have a great mango variety viewer on their site that describes the mangos. Here is another great source on mango varieties: http://www.fairchildgarden.org/livingcollections/tropicalfruitprogram/Fairchilds17thAnnualInternationalMangoFestival/internationalmangofestival/

Most grafted plants will start to bloom very early...too early in fact. The plant is often not more than a thin stick with some leaves on top. The best bet is too lop off that main leader to just several inches above the graft point. This will start you on a road to a very compact, strong tree with branches that will easily support the weight of fruit. Difficult to do but the results cannot be disputed.

If you are interested in tropical fruit, you should jump onto GardenWeb's tropical fruit forum...where the rest of us nuts hang out!

thanks ohiojay
looks like i'll be in good company. :)
i purchased a grafted carambola plant early spring that's now twice my height (5'6") with lots of leaves and no budding. i maybe pushing the envelope here but would cutting just above the graft site work as well. thanks

I don't think I would cut down quite that far for this. I would make sure some leaves were still below the cut. Young starfruit tend to shoot straight up and they are weak as all get out. If you were to spray water on the plant, I bet it would bend straight to the ground. A lot of people lost their plants when they start to fruit because the weight of the fruit will collapse the structure of the plant. If the plant is well established, they will handle harsh pruning.

you're right about that. in an attempt to contain it, i trained it into a sorta of circle with carefully placed spikes and still it shoots up. so i preparation for winter, i cut back most of the leaves with the exception to those left on top. anything under the graft site was removed early on. my mistake may have been that oversize pot i placed it in. at least a 20 gallon. i tend to overshoot as a just in case. sounds like i may need to wait and hope some of those leaves will regrow in spring. other than that, i'd say it's quite established and maybe a blessing that it didn't fruit this year allowing for better development.
so this forum is for plants and there's one for fruit. very cool. i'll check into that next. i believe the tomato/pepper trade is now closed and am waiting for seeds. is there a tropical seed trade other than the standard trade forum. or is it more of a plant trade. i see you're in z6 close to my z7. might i ask if you've overwintered your tropicals. are tropicals prone to the aphids/spidermites or whiteflies.
thanks again ohiojay.

I have a greenhouse where I keep everything. And yes... insects are usually a major pain in the a$$.

Here's a pic of my starfruit grown from seed. It's about fours years old now with a trunk nearly 2". Last year I brought back cuttings from a Bell carambola...supposed to be very sweet, and grafted them onto my big seedling. Only the bud graft succeeded and it is now blooming & fruiting like crazy. I also have a cutting from a Thai variety grafted onto the plant. My mother-in-law sent me this from Thailand earlier this year. I keep the plant constantly pruned back...never letting it get too tall or any branches too long. I just pruned the plant last week back to about 4' tall and all of the branches back to where it was blooming.

wow, that's quite a plant even pruned. the trunk looks impressively sturdy. very nice. my plant was purchased from logee's. it's listed as a sri kembangan, it's suppose to be quite sweet. with a bit of luck, hopefully i'll have fruit next year. interesting grafting, is it difficult to do...

I believe it is more a "timing" issue. Obviously, there must be compatibility and lining up the cambiums. I've had more grafts fail with starfruit than any other. I will do only approach grafts in the future with these using my smaller seedling plants.