Theobroma cacao

I ordered a theobroma cacao plant from a Hawaiian EBay seller in July 2016. I ordered a second one from a Florida EBay seller in March 2017. The first one has grown really fast from 12 inches to about 3 feet in one year.

Longan

I purchased longan fruit at the flea market in the summer of 2016. One of the seeds sprouted, and this is what it looks like a year later.

Citrus Plants

Most of my citrus plants died in the winter of 2014-2015 because I left them in the too cold greenhouse. The only two of the originals remaining are the Citura tangerine and one seedling tangerine. The Meyer lemon, key lime, etc. are defunct.

This is the Gurneys Citura Tangerine. I really think it is actually a calamondin. The plant is flowering for the first time since 2014.

This is one of the seedling tangerines that I planted back in 2010. It's ironic that I thought this to be the weaker of the two seedlings since it did not grow much. Yet it survived the cold winter when the other did not. I had to cut it back to the ground though, essentially regressing it to juvenility. I hope it flowers eventually. The good thing is that it grows better since the big chop.

Last is a Kishu mandarin that I acquired in summer 2016. It tried to flower in January 2017, but was unable to set fruit. It has grown a lot.

Dragon Fruits

This is my Physical Graffiti. This is its second year producing flowers and fruits. The fruit is mid-sized, purple/pink fleshed, and very sweet. This plant can self pollinate, but not very well. Self-pollinated fruit are generally small with flesh the size of a golf ball.

Next is the Mystery dragon fruit. I learned last year that this plant yields thick, white-fleshed fruit with thick rind. I'll never know for sure what variety it is, but I feel it may be akin to Thompson or Harpua. This variety is self fertile.

Next is an unknown variety acquired from my friend Vin. I believe it to be a Vietnamese white.

Last is a seedling red dragon fruit that I planted around July 2015. It's getting big and I don't quite know my future plans for it. The plant is some sort of Nicaraguan variety. The stems are very thorny and have a white frosting on them.

Mallika and Pickering Mango

In November of 2015, I acquired a Mallika (green pot) and Pickering (orange pot) from Plantogram. Both have been strong growers, and both flowered sometime between January-March of 2017. I removed all flowers to give the trees a chance to get a little bigger.

Selenicereus megalanthus flower buds

One of the yellow dragon fruit plants is producing flower buds for the very first time. It's been a long road from their humble beginnings in September 2014. The thicker, shorter initial cutting is the one that is blooming. The Hylocereus megalanthus plants grow much slower than the other dragon fruit plants. The flower buds grow much slower too, which may be an issue since I have limited warm weather. I'll see what happens.

Super Dwarf Banana

I haven't had a banana plant for over a year. I've had disappointments trying to get bananas to set fruit. I have had 3 plants to grow a bell and fingers of bananas during the fall/ winter when I have no sunlight to give them. Consequently, I haven't been able to ripen the fruit, and I gave up on bananas.

I was thinking about how I encourage others to learn from mistakes and try again. Then I thought about my years growing bananas and how I have given up. I saw some super dwarf bananas in Food Lion $14.99, and it seemed like a good time to try again. In fact, my whole tropical plants craze can be traced back to a dwarf pineapple plant that I bought at Food Lion in 2010.<\p>

This time, I'm not going to expect to much. I am limiting myself to one new plant or pup each year. Anything else must be composted. The maximum height is 2-4 feet, so I should be able to bring the plant indoors without pruning. I am not maintaining a separate blog, bananasbytbird.blogspot.com, specifically for bananas. Instead I will post information about the banana on my tropical plants blog. I am not interested in other varieties of banana because they grow too tall and I cannot accommodate them.

Pomegranate

I purchased a Big Red pomegranate from Logees in March 2017. Since then, the plant has tripled its size. The caliper of the trunk has doubled. I just pruned it a few days ago because there was a limb growing really close to the ground. I desire to have a single trunk about 18 inches in height and then to have branching limbs. I will keep trimming suckers that grow too low down on the trunk.

Vanilla Planifolia

This is a vanilla plant that I acquired from an EBay seller around April 2017. It has been a strong and rapid grower, doubling its size in the past 4 months. This has been a much different experience than my first encounter with vanilla when I purchased a tissue cultured plant from Wellspring Gardens. The hard part will be keeping the heat and humidity levels adequate during the winter.

I'm back!

Okay,so I'm not a tropical plant. However I am the author of this blog. I've done a poor job of up keeping my blogs for two years because I have been posting mostly on YouTube. Recently I needed some information about my plants and I returned to this blog for reference. It made me realize how valuable it is to have records of my exploits. Consequently, I am going to try to post more on this blog to help me remember the plant adventures I have taken.

First Dragon Fruit Flower Bud 2017

I found my first flower bud of the season yesterday, June 10. This is about 3 weeks earlier than last years bloom which began July 2. Hopefully I can get 3 flushes of flowers and fruit before cold weather sets in. The Physical Graffiti is blooming first just like last year. The mystery plant seems not too far behind because I can see some nodes that are very swollen. I wonder if any of the others will try to flower too. Things I did differently were I put my plants in full day sun. The plants were on the porch since the beginning of April and moved to full sun around mid April. I used a flood light for night treatment. However, I don't know how effective this was. A document I read suggested light treatment must be used before March or the official start of spring. I probably need to start treatment in mid February if I expect blooms in May. I know my blooms are earlier this year, but the move to full sun could be causative. My friend Vin said his dragon fruit bloomed earlier than mine last year. He suggested I needed to move my plants to a sunnier location.

Mystery Dragon Fruit Flower

The mystery dragon fruit might reveal her true identity in a couple of months.  I discovered a flower button which will develop into a bud and then a flower.  If I'm lucky enough to harvest mature fruit, I can find out what color fruit flesh the plant produces. Of course I'll never be 100% positive as to its variety, but I'll settle for knowing the color of the flesh.  The color doesn't matter to me so long as the flavor is excellent.

On a side note, I have been watching certain areoles on the mystery plant for 2-3 weeks because they seemed to be swelling slightly.  It's amazing how fast the button appears seemingly overnight.  I check my plants daily, and there was no button.  Then, bang!  There is the button.