I live in South Florida- Davie. The soil is sandy, rocky, limestone. I have a sunny south facing 1/2 acre (hence the username). Everything I've planted has died except for a banana that I added a bag of topsoil in the hole to before planting. I was told by all the tropical fruit nurseries not to amend the soil, so I didn't.

All the neighbors have flourishing fruit trees with no effort. They often taunt me with their healthy trees and send over delicious fruit in consolation. No they don't taunt me, I just feel a bit of a failure is all.

ou really need to take a soil test
and bring it to the local AGri dept.

it could be PH,, or, a lack of a certain mineral,
or both.
How is drainage ?

I will take a stab at it (guess)
it looks like there is no much or compost on the soil
and the grass is starting to come back.
open ground is a bad thing. it lets water evaporate fast.
which might mean you were watering very often,
which might be the cause of those white spots i see on the trunk
a fungus ?

Also, "probably" alkaline, so , you should probably add something to lower the PH.
im no expert on that, mine is already low.

talk to your neighbors about amending the soil
likely, its the same type soil.
but the Ag guy should know best with a soil sample.

The reason why some say not to amend,
is taht it can create a "pocket" that holds water, or, just handles water different than the rest of the yard.

and MULCH !
or, compost is even better.

If you have spots, you plan on planting later,
you can start to develop the soil now.
dig up, amend with compost and organic matter
(coffee grounds are great. Starbucks gives me 50lb at a time)
put some cardboard on top, grass clipping and yard waste on top of that.
water it every few days.
keep adding coffee grounds, yard waste, grass etc...
in a year,, it will be great soil, and it will have good drainage cos its a little higher.

Ok. Where should I send a soil sample? Is there a way to sample properly?
My soil is quite poor, but same as my neighbors'.

After a few years of no growth I just neglected this poor Carrie mango hoping it would die off like everything else. Even the neem and jujube kicked the bucket - and they are meant to be indestructible.

I didn't notice the white spots. Those aren't normal?

Yeah, Sandy, so hard to say what exactly the problem is but the FIRST thing I would do if I didn't know much about growing things wwould be to talk to the neighbors....just call one of the them and go over and pick their brains. I'm sure you'll learn a lot of things!

Good Luck.....