Gardening with Tropical Fruit

June 2005

By Gene Joyner, Extension Agent
Palm Beach County Cooperative Extension Service

This month we should officially begin our summer rainy season which extends until late September or early October. You should be receiving more regular rainfall now and this is a good time of year to take advantage of that by doing your summer fertilization of all types of tropical fruits.

Use good quality fruit tree fertilizers at manufacturer’s recommended rates and if you have young trees or ones that are newly planted you can fertilize these every other month for the next several months.

This is the time of year for finishing up large scale pruning especially of bigger tropical fruit trees and ornamental trees as well. Hurricanes could come at any time and big trees are more at risk of being uprooted. Make sure when having pruning done that it’s done by qualified arborists who know what they’re doing and have the proper equipment, too.

Earlier blooming tropical fruits are now maturing their crops and we’re getting to a favorite time of year for many people - mango season. Mangoes aren’t as plentiful this year as in previous years because of hurricane damage to many people’s trees, but there’s enough for people to enjoy.

Other tropical fruits this time of year such as lychees are also coming in and some people have a reasonably good crop.

This is a good time of year for doing propagation of tropical fruits and grafting, air layering, or rooting cuttings should be very successful at this time of year. If you’ve collected seeds from fruits that are maturing now, make sure that the seeds are planted quickly since many tropical fruits have short viability and if seeds are stored for long periods then you get poor germination. Put seeds in well drained mixes and keep moistened but now overly wet, otherwise the seeds often rot.
If you’re wanting to add tropical fruits to your landscape, many local nurseries have good inventories at this time of year and by planting now trees should get well established during the summer rainy season.