First...a special thanks to Warren Condon, Eldys Diaz, Sheehan Gobin, Rich Scheff, and Chris Hind. Thanks for everything.
Got to finally meet Gerry(lycheeluva) in person on Thursday while we waited for our rental car. Got to love a guy who greets you with a fresh mangosteen! Ate it while we waited. My wife, Gerry, and I hit it off immediately. He had us laughing at his fresh lychee hunt stories. Thanks to Gerry bringing a portable navigator, getting around Florida was a snap!
We immediately took off north for Excalibur. Some rare plants I was interested in were already waiting for me when we arrived. Unfortunately, the owner picked the wrong time to change the price of his plants and priced himself out of several purchases. We were given a great tour of the place. Quite an operation going on there. The huge specimens in the 200-400 gallon containers were quite impressive...alas...shipping would have crippled not only the budget but my marriage as well. Most of the plants and areas seemed in pretty decent shape. However, most of the more rare plants were obviously not well taken care of. Most bordered on being criminal. I was very disappointed in a lot of these plants. More purchases that was not going to be made. I did get a small maprang seedling that was nice. We were shown some Garcinia Edulis plants...great big and smaller, that were fruiting. Really ripe fruit was excellent and the taste had a hint of mangosteen. Left with some fruit and regret not going back after one of the plants. Oh well.
Gerry picked out the hotel......and it was a good one. Clean, comfortable, beautiful pool. Later that evening we met Bill Mee, owner of Lycheesonline, at his home and orchard. Great guy. Picked his brain...and picked his lychees!!!! He said to help ourselves. I showed great restraint by not gorging myself. Poor Gerry was shaking from his restraint so bad, I thought he was going to have a breakdown or something. He did us proud though. And of course we had to buy some before we left.
Went to PIN on Fri. We were given a mini tour of the facilities...at least the areas we were most interested in. Started pouring down rain. Didn't slow us down any. Bought a Sweetheart lychee and Cogshall mango. There wasnt a hell of a big difference between the 3 gal and 7 gal so I got the 3 gal's and let them ship the plants. Less for me to try and box up on my own. Then the rain REALLY set in...like pouring out of a giant bucket. We're safely back at the main office by this time purchasing more lychees, mangos, and dragon fruit.
Schnebly's Winery was a bust. They only do tours on the weekends. We did the tasting. Out of the five, the mango wine was simply awesome. I left with four bottles.
Robert Is Here fruitstand was nice. The key lime shake is very good. My only advice to them would be that if they cut up fruit and wrap to be sold, please put them on ice! The jakfruit smelled like it had fermented in the plastic wrap. The taste, once past the smell, was not bad. Gerry also bought soursop. If I'm not mistaken here, his exact quote after taking a bite was this: "it tastes like vomit and feet.". That pretty much pre-judged any taste test from me. It was horrible. The mamey was a little better but nothing to cause me to go all a glitter.
Next stop was Tim's Oriental Market somewhere in Miami. I was told I could get fresh mangosteen for $9.50/lb. instead of $16/lb. back home. And for all of you out there not believing an oriental market was named Tim's, it is Tim's. My wife and Gerry was very humble after arguing that it must be named Kim's.
Saturday nearly had me driving back to Excalibur for the garcinia edulis plant, then going straight to Miami area. Didn't do it. Fruit and Spice Park was a good trip. Got to meet Warren and Chris from the Yahoo group. Warren is the one taking us around to different places. A member from the Citrus Growers forum, Eyeckr, also met us at the park. Eldys, from our forum, was there and took us around the park for a guided tour. HeÂs very informative and seems to know every plant in the park. It was great of him to spend the time he did with all of us. Everyone appreciated it. The weather was like being in Thailand. I was so caught up in walking around with either Eldys or Warren and listening to them, that I pretty much forgot about taking many pictures. I think my wife took some but we haven't uploaded them yet.
There was a young, blond-headed kid from norther California that was tagging along with us at the park. Surprised the hell out of us when we found that he really knew his stuff! Very cool seeing someone of his age so interested in plants. Hey little dude...if you are on this forum, please make yourself known.
Warren then took us to Rick ScheffÂs place, a friend of his that has about 5 acres of jackfruit, lychees, longans, and all kinds of things growing in his yard. Probably spent close to two hours there. He gave me a yellow dragonfruit cutting.
Next stop of the day was Warren's house. Small yard just packed with all kinds of fruit trees. Lots of rare and impossible to obtain plants. I teased him that a few may be missing come Monday morning. I smiled when I said it. We pointed, chatted, oooh'd and aaah'd even while the raining was pouring down. Probably spent a good couple of hours. Remember, my wife was "along for the ride" so to speak. So after a few plants, they were all the same. Later that night she exclaimed that Warren and I acted and sounded like a couple of teen-aged girls all excited about plants!! It was actually pretty funny hearing this come from her and at the same time, painfully true.
He and his wife took us all out for a good German dinner. Best food we've had all week so far. I wish I could remember the seafood place we went to so I could find an on-line rating for them! What do you get when you add up all zeroes?
Sunday greeted us by getting Gerry to the airport early due to family concerns. So he missed out on our trip to Fairchild Gardens. But he gave me money and said to buy everyone lunch. What a guy! We met Warren and his wife at the park and had a nice time. The park, as always, was wonderful. The Whitman Pavillion...a holy shrine. The rambutan and langsats had blooms. The mangosteens were getting quite large. A good ending stop to the trip.
Thanks to all who shared the experience with us. Gerry's a fine traveling companion. I learned more about the Jewish faith during our drives then I ever knew to date. Beware the coco-de-mer palms!
Hopefull I can get the pics uploaded soon.
Here's what plants I brought home or having shipped home:
Maprang seedling, Sweetheart lychee, Cogshall mango, two grafted cherichuelas(cuttings taken from Bill Whitman's tree)
Cuttings: Kampong Mauve sugar apple, Pakistani mulberry, imbeÂs(male and female), cherapuÂs(male and female), longkong langsat, yellow dragonfruit, Bell carambola, and some plumeria.
Seeds: Garcinia Edulis, purple mombin, a theobroma cousin, mangosteens from the irradiated, fresh, refridgerated fruit, jakfruit.
lycheeluva
puglvr1
Related Professionals
Traverse City Landscape Architects & Landscape Designers · Kenosha Landscape Architects & Landscape Designers · Edmonton Landscape Architects & Landscape Designers · Cape Coral Landscape Contractors · Pittsburg Landscape Contractors · Salina Landscape Contractors · Muskogee Landscape Contractors · Pittsfield Landscape Contractors · Tacoma Landscape Contractors · Little Rock Architects & Building Designers · Albany Architects & Building Designers · Victoria Architects & Building Designers · Norfolk Architects & Building Designers · Billings Architects & Building Designers · Spokane Architects & Building Designersplummy
lycheeluva
plummy
ohiojayOriginal Author
puglvr1
jsvand5
tropicaliste
ohiojayOriginal Author
red_sea_me
ohiojayOriginal Author
jsvand5
plummy
ohiojayOriginal Author
User
lycheeluva
north_tree_man
lycheeluva
ohiojayOriginal Author
north_tree_man
eldys
eyeckr
puglvr1
jsvand5
bluepalm
cattman
ch3rri