Is it still growing (new leaves productions?)....I think that few weeks of relative cold should be enough....it's always a subtropical plant, not a deciduous tree

It's warm here in Orlando too. We used to have several freezes by this time when I was a kid, but haven't seen one since 2010. My lychees are flushing like crazy now.

If it gets any hotter here in Florida, then you might get someone trying to plant a lychee in the ground in Tallahassee. I heard someone trying to planted it in the ground in Louisiana.

Global warming has been good to me. I used to be only able to grow citrus here; now I have longan, lychee, mango, atemoya, etc. It's been great. I wouldn't mind it a little warmer still though -- I'd love to be able to grow a camito.

I live about 2 hours south of Orlando and I have one lychee tree...its been above normal here too and my Lychee did bloom but they are "mixed" blooms and new growths on the same branch. What I believe that means for me is I won't have as many lychees this year, but time will tell...my mango trees are also not blooming. I have 6 trees and only one bloomed ( but its a light bloom). I'm hoping its not too late to get some mangoes this year.

If you live in Miami and you don't get blooms in a few weeks you may not get it this year. If you get new growths instead that's a definite sign you aren't going to get flowers :o(

Last year all my lychee bloomed in March. I am still hoping for a big bloom. I got a small caimito tree, but it is struggling to stay alive. It was healthy when it was in the pot, but nearly died when I planted it in the ground.

I got only 3 flower panicles on one mango tree and none on the other. My mango bloomed in early February last year. There is no bloom or new growth. The tree is dormant and I have been watering it twice a week for 2 months. If it produce new growth, then I will give up hope for bloom but it is doing nothing.

It is definitely a weird winter here in Florida...above normal temps in most Central and South Florida. But the fact that the trees are not putting out new growths so far is a good sign that blooms are possible? Dormant trees at least have the potential for blooms in several weeks.

Tony, that amazing getting blooms on your lychee tree in March...that is so late traditionally...best of luck to all of us!

My only mango tree that has a few blooms...very little fruitlets set.

Lychee with the "mixed" blooms

pug, your tree always looks so healthy. how long was your lychee dormant?

Thanks Andi, appreciate your kind comments...my tree was probably dormant from around Oct till mid Dec...so about 2 months or so?

How did your trees fair through the storm last night? This kind of weather usually knocks all the bloom off the tree.

I nearly lost two larger trees -- a guava and a starfruit; had to stake them down with rope. Tornado came within half a mile of the property -- crazy winds. I thought my lychees would be goners for sure, but they survived like champs in 80 mile/hr gusts.

Hi Tony...So far the blooms appear to be intact but only time will tell if they actually set fruits...I'll update once I see actualy fruitlets :o)

The winds were definitely fierce the last 2 days!!Chrobrego, Wow, 80 mph!!!! That's insane, I'm glad your trees survived!!! Now we just have to hope we don't get a killing frost/freeze **sigh**

I am surprise most of the new growth on my lychee survived. The brazilian pepper tree lost most off its leaves. The tree is a weed that I have to cut back ever 4 months because it grows too fast, but I haven't cut it down because it is a wind breaker for the lychee tree.

I don't have the time or money to plant a new wind breaker.

It is going to get cold again in a few days.

I had a wind breaker for my lychee tree for almost 2 years after planting...it has really proven to work. It was a very cheap set up...conduits for posts and burlap or shade cloth. But your idea of using the brazillian pepper tree works too, I heard banana do well as wind breakers also but those are a lot more susceptible to freeze/frost.

Puglvr1, you posted a pic of this a while back and I copied it. It really helped my little lychee get a good start.

Thanks Chrobrego! I'm glad it worked for you also...it definitely made a big difference in my lychee tree. And as a bonus when we had a freeze warning the wind enclosure made it so much easier to throw Frost blankets and or tarps to protect the tree :o)

Hello all of our lychee and mango lovers!

I was rather pleasantly surprised when I found my little potted Sweet heart blooming in December too. There were a few nights of cold and I moved it to my little green house. Then, when the flower buds started to open, I was a little panicky that they may die off without any sign of pollinators around. So, I decided to pollinate with a little paint brush. A couple of days when the weather warmed up, I took it out and saw male mosquitoes on the blooms, followed by some tiny flies and viola ... they all did the job. Now, I'm seeing little fruitlets forming. A potted Brewster and a potted Mauritius have some scanty blooms in them.

The only one in the ground that is producing bloom now is my favorite more than 10 years old Brewster. It has consistently fruited for me on an alternate year. It seems this way with all my lychee trees in the ground.

Puglvr, nice pictures of your lychee and mango in bloom. You're certainly right to say that those that show new flushes aren't going to fruit this year. Fortunately, this big Brewster of mine have mostly hardened old leaves.

My tall Hak Ip tree doesn't have new flushes, but isn't sending out blooms yet, but I'm thinking it might take a break this year. Like I've said, all my lychee trees seem to be behaving that way for me.

I finally chopped down my non fruiting huge 10-year old Mauritius tree. My husband didn't finish off the job and it started to send out new flushes all through the Summer and even up till now. I thought to myself, maybe this is one last year it should behave itself. Looks like, we need to clean out everything off the ground for another new tree to grow there.

Meanwhile, only my Carrie mango is flushing. The 4 others (Pickering, Choc Anon, Coconut cream and Cogshell) not doing anything yet.

Tony, has your lychee tree shown signs of little fruit forming yet?

Sorry for the long post ... will post some pictures soon.

bananafan,

Mauritius tends to bloom the earliest out of the different varieties so most often it serves as a pollinator towards other varieties that may be in the area but does not itself get pollinated. (cross pollination increases the chances of fruit set)

I'm guessing you live in Florida? I talked to the owner of ONG nursery in San Diego, a Vietnamese man who's been growing lychees in big containers for many years as part of his business and he said that the Brewster is a bad variety and would take 10+ years to fruit. I am thinking it may really have something to do with the difference in climate between California and Florida.

Mauritius is supposed to be one of the most prolific fruiting varieties.

I'm thinking probably Brewster is a great variety for Florida due to the humidity and the colder winter chills, but not for Southern California. Kaimana supposedly does great in Hawaii but not as well in California or Florida (according to Pine Island Nursery in Miami).

Back to Mauritius, I personally suspect it is because Mauritius is naturally kind of dwarfed so that makes it more precocious with more proclivity to produce fruit before it's 10 years old. The smaller size of the individual fruits on this variety may also contribute.

Maybe you were taking too good care of it. If the tree is growing fast, it's energy is going to be diverted to growth rather than fruit production. This is true of all fruit trees in general. Maybe it's faster easier growth rate in the Florida climate is also inversely tied to poorer fruit production there. Mauritius is the favored cultivar for commercial harvests in Mexico where the climate is dry.

So the Mauritius variety may be reliant on dwarfing to produce good fruit yields (but there's not necessarily this connection between dwarfing and fruit yields in other lychee varieties). Just something I thought about, could be wrong.

I'm curious about any tips about growing lychee in containers. I think re potting, which type of soil to use, and how to winter are unique to container growing.

after this years hard freeze in Houston I'm hesitant to put them in the ground.

Hi bananafan! Nice to see you! Congrats on your potted lychees having fruitlets, so cool! Looking forward to pictures later :o)...sorry about your Mauritius, its so weird that it has been a bad producer for you, I've been very lucky with mine...it has bloomed every year for me since I planted it except the first year I planted it...I pruned it in February because I wanted it to put its energy to growing and getting bigger its first year. I wonder "if" your Mauritius was not labeled properly and its actually not a Mauritius?...just a thought

I hope we have a decent crop of Lychees this summer...I'm not looking forward to fighting with the critters and birds this year **sigh**

Parker, I too have heard that Mauritius is one of the most reliable producer for Florida followed by Brewster...

Hi Andi, if there is one advise I can give on container lychee growing is it needs a lot of water especially in the hot Texas summer or almost anytime its warm...they need a free draining potting mix, something that retains moisture but does not keep it "soggy"...they are very different in their water needs compared to mangoes...lychees love water and there is almost no such thing as over watering them unlike mangoes that can go dry a couple of days. I recently lost a lychee tree in a container because I forgot to water it a couple of days in the summer ( had no rain) and I went out of town for a couple of days...the leaves were droopy and eventually never recovered :o(

Thanks puglover!

I'm considering leaving the tree in 6ft greenhouse(s) and then setting up an irrigation system that will spray the leaves and soil twice a day during the summer. Plan on moving the sweetheart to 5-1-1 mix (or does it need more peat for lower pH?)

the healthier tree is a sweetheart I got last winter and the damaged tree is a Mauritius potted this fall. Some of the sweetheart growths loom like blooms. Should I prune the blooms and repot to new soil now or wait?

Hi Puglvr,

It's nice to see you too :) I haven't been posting much. With the exception of my Key Lime which was planted early this year, my bananas and Thai jujube which gave fruit, nothing much is producing. After I saw the bloom spikes on my Sweetheart and Carrie Mango, I thought to myself, "Is Spring really here again?" So glad to come here and see what others' lychees are doing for them. It's such a refreshing sight.

Your theory about my big Mauritius being labeled wrongly could as well be a possibility for its non production. Then, I wonder which variety would that be then? Anyway, I also threw in a few of my own guesses ... One of them being that it was damaged in the cold that almost killed it. Since I heard that branches more than 1" should not be severed because it would affect the fruit production. Apparently, during the damage in that cold spell, many of its limbs were damaged and severed. The other guess had to do with a sterile tree ... It may not be due to just its variety because apparently many of you who have Mauritius do well for you. I think fruit trees sometimes can share behavior like humans too ... a little weird sometimes? lol Meanwhile, my yard space is running out and I have other plan for that spot now. I might plant another Jujube there. My Thai Jujube is doing very well and yielding fruit that tastes like a a cross between an Asian pear and an apple.

Here are some of my lychees in blooms taken yesterday. I'm not expecting them to bear me much fruit even though some of the bloom spikes may look "impressive." I think usually the potted ones don't hold on to their fruit too well, but it's just fun to watch them do their thing :) I can only look forward to my Big Brewster in the ground to bear me something. And yes ... I'm not looking forward to fighting with the critters over the fruit too. Too tired out for that now .... lol.

Sweetheart (with quite a few bloom spikes and some fruitlets forming)

Mauritius (with scanty blooms)

Brewster

Brewster (left) and Emperor (right)

Andi,

Nice pictures of your lychees. I like your idea of the Christmas lights and the protection you're giving to your lychees. I have a few trees here that I also dressed them up with Christmas lights.

I hope all your lychees ride through your cold weather there.

Puglvr,

Sorry to hear that one of your lychees dried out ... I also had a similar experience with an Emperor lychee. I gave it a complete trim ... fortunately it came back to life. Unless the stem is also dead dry down to its roots, otherwise maybe it still might have a chance to live? I know .. I always feel very sad when one of them had to go like that. Recently, I forgot to water my cherry rio de grande and it looked dead. I panicked and started to trim off all it's dead branches until only a "skeleton" remained. Now, it is completed filled out with brand new branches with shinny leaves. It makes me smile to see it so alive and willing to live on.

Hi Andi, love your Christmas tree lights :o). I think those are blooms also? I will leave that up to you...if you want to see a few fruits this year I would let it set but if you want the tree to put its energy into getting larger and bushier before letting it set fruits I would trim the blooms off...its a personal choice but if it were mine I would let it grow a little more before letting it fruit. It takes a lot of energy to let a young tree fruit. Also I would wait to pot it when your weather is warmer...maybe March or April? for us in FL...early March usually is a good time to repot and trim trees that aren't going to fruit but our warm weather comes earlier than yours... Spring is the best time in my experience... You can add a little more Peat in the potting mix for the lychee tree it will probably appreciate the extra water it will retain. Best of luck!

Hi Banana, you are so right about trees being a little like people...they have their own personality and traits...they will do what they want Lol...

Sweetheart is the only Lychee tree that comes to mind that takes quite a while to become a good producer, some say almost 10 years? I've read many people complaining they are disappointed on how long it takes for them to fruit consistently...but once they get established I hear they do much better so its really hard to say what variety yours might have been. Its probably Mauritius but its just one of the "fickle" ones you ended up with :o)

Thanks for the great pictures, some of those blooms really look nice and full! Hope we get a good crop...now we just have to fight off the critters **sigh**

I actually "pugged" my dried out lychee tree in hopes it would regrow new leaves and it actually did but every time it started to get small baby leaves it would die off after a few days :o(...this went on at least 4 different flushes and after that is when I decided to put it out of its misery...I waited about 6 months before I gave up :o(

Lychees are certainly one of the more finicky fruit trees. But when they do produce fruit it's well worth it. Lychees are probably one of the most delicious tropical fruits. (Well actually, to be more precise, lychees are somewhere midrange between tropical and subtropical)

Just in this thread alone there are conflicting claims about which varieties are the ones reluctant to bare fruit. Probably there are other factors, besides the variety type, that can make fruit production so variable.

Puglover, when you pugged the lychee and it was trying to grow back, how much was it able to grow back each time? was it just little nubs <1cm? i've thought about what would happen with pugging a lychee and thought it probably would not work. if there were attempts at regrowth, do you think cutting all except 2-3 branches would work better?

regarding blooms, i had an interesting observation last year (different sweetheart that i ended up killing by foliar spraying) that i saw vegetative flushes in jan during a warm spell. i would tip prune the flushes, but they kept growing back and i finally gave up (it also got colder) - then after a couple weeks i noticed blooms.

this year, the sweetheart that i posted pictures of, had vegetative flush right before the hard freeze. the new growth froze and those branches all suffered freeze damage. the branches that were dormant started pushing growth about 5 days after the hard freeze, which are the blooms i posted.

has anyone tip pruned vegetative flushes or even cut back entire branches to induce blooming? it probably takes more effort and only for small scale

bananafan, those are some impressive blooms!

what size container and what type of soil are they in?

I absolutely agree that there are many factors involved other than variety in growing most fruit trees...so many things can come into play :o)

Andi what little I know about lycee is they tend not respond well to pugging...mangoes in my opinion do so much better, maybe because the new leaves on lychees are so much more sensitive to many things. I only pugged my potted lychee as I said because I forgot to water it for a couple of days in the summer and it went south and all the leaves turned brown and died. The new leaves were pretty small before they started to shrivel up and die...

I do however have great luck pruning Lychee trees...take off anywhere from a few inches to a foot or more depending of course on the size of tree...I'm planning on maintaining my tree at around 10-12 ft (hopefully)....right now its about 7-8ft tall. I know the older I get the harder it will be for me to keep up with the trimming, Lol...

Andi,

I've had some success growing lychees in container. I have a brewster and a sweetheart in ground, but wanted more trees -- no space though. I put an emperor and a sweetheart in large containers and I have a mauritius in a large 5x9 concrete block container that I made myself.

The containerized lychee have been producing fruit but the emperor seems to be more reliable and produces fruit much more reliably than the sweetheart.

I use a drip irrigation system that runs off the lawn sprinkler system. Essentially, I converted one back yard zone to the garden and tap off the line when I need to -- if you see from the last pic, I ran some pvc (painted black) along the fence to tap into as I need it. I buy $5 drip irrigation heads at Home Depot and run irrigation line to each. The irrigation is run off a timer that gives about 3 minutes of water (2 drip heads giving a total of 4gph) twice a day.

The containers are on weather treated plywood stands that I made from 2x4, black paint and weather proof wheels. I can hall the plants in if I suspect a frost. Easy.

very nice system! I'm curious if you've noticed differences between the lychees in pots vs ground. does one stay dormant longer than another? any differences in growth habits?

Too early to tell but they won't stay in pots forever -- will have to trim roots, etc in a few years I'm guessing to keep them small. The emperor seems to love the container though -- fruits every year and doesn't get big.

I think less cool temperature is needed for pots because the roots get colder faster in the pot than in the ground.

Potassium chlorate is applied to the roots of the longans to make it bloom so the root must somehow trigger the tree to bloom.

after this years hard freeze I'm definitely scared to put the lychees in the ground - if I do I probably will need to keep them small enough to keep in the pop up green house (6ft) and I'll probably buy a ceramic utility heater for next winter.

I've been wanting to buy an emperor lychee but haven't found it in a nursery here. has anyone had a reliable online seller? the cultivars are not easily distinguished but I'd hope emperor would be the one that's reliable to differentiate

Andi,

I've purchased about 30-40 fruit trees from Tropical-treasure on Ebay. They are a nursery in Ft. Myers, Florida. I haven't had any issues with them, and they have a good selection. http://www.ebay.com/usr/tropicaltreasure-us?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2754

Houston may be a bit too far north for lychees in the ground. I'm pushing it here in Orlando, and we never see the type of freezes that you guys do. If I were you, I'd get an emperor and put it in a 45 gallon pot; make sure you have good drainage but adequate moisture retention too. It won't tolerate mucky soil, but it will die quickly if you neglect to water. An emperor should reward you with a few fruit your first year and so on. The only issue with that variety is that the fruit isn't in many people's opinion quite as good as perhaps a brewster, sweetheart or mauritius; that being said, I've never had a bad lychee either.

As you can see from my earlier pics, I put the 45 gallon on a 2x4 stand with about 6 to 8 wheels underneath. It makes it VERY easy to move when you need to get it in the garage or under some cover.