Holiday Update - Jabo Growth

My multi-grafted jaboticaba trees are doing great. I've rotated one of them into my greenhouse for a bit to get some of the latter grafted scions to push so that I could be sure that they took on the rootstock. It seems to have worked. I got P. grandifolia and P. aureana to show their leaves and now the first of my two multi-grafts is chilling outside like it was springtime.

On my primary P. cauliflora "Sabará" tree, I now have:

• P. grandiflora (Giant)
• P. aureana (White)
• P. peruviana, syn. trunciflora (Cafe)
• P. coronata (Crowned)
• P. coronata "Restinga" (Crowned)
• P. sp. "Grimal"
• P. spirito-santensis
• P. phitrantha "Branca-Vinho" (fmr "Paulista açú") (Costada)

Besides these grafts, I have a few plants that are holding in there just fine through the colder months. Escalarte is getting bigger in the greenhouse, so that and some Red scions will probably go on to my multigrafts next spring. I'll probably do a very small graft from "Roxa Polpa" if it can survive the winter. I have had a hard time with the small plants, and this is my smallest. I've lots too many to unknown causes this last year. I think I'll stick to sticks (aka scions) or well-established plants in the future.

• P. cauliflora x aureana (Red or "Precoce") 2x
• M. vexator (Blue)
• P. sp. "Escalarte" (Scarlet)
• P. sp. "Grimal"
• P. cauliflora "Roxa Polpa"

Holiday Update - Last Annona Standing

I had too many Annona plants, and they were mostly stagnant in their small planters. I picked the heathiest plants and kept those on the fence (literally), which I up-potted a sugar apple "Super Atis" (Annona squamosa) and a Phat Pak Chong "PPC" (Annona cherimola x squamosa) into the perforated 20 gallon trash cans. The former has a large human heart sized fruit about 8 feet off the ground that is slowly getting a blush. It was was cherimoya tasted last year, and it will be one sugar apple this year. The lot on the fence are:

• Annona reticulata "Tobago Pink"
• Annona cherimola x squamosa (Atemoya) "Randhir"
• Annona cherimola x squamosa (Atemoya) "African Pride"
• Annona scleroderma (Cawesh or Poshte)
• Annona sp. (muricata x glabra) (Golden Sugar Apple or Pineapple Annona)
• Annona rollinia deliciosa (Biriba)

Holiday Update - Yuzu and Poo

I haven't been keeping up with some of the small changes in the garden in the second part of this year. Here's catch up post one.

I bought a semi-dwarf yuzu tree (Citrus x junos (ichangensis x reticulata var. austera)) from a local nursery. It's only a couple of feet tall and sitting in a 20 gal perforated trash can which has become my standard for I-want-this-to-grow-healthy-roots. It had a few tiny immature fruit and some flowers on it when I bought it. It grew a little bit in the summer months, and held on to a few of the fruit. Recently three of them were worth picking, so I have those ready for a cocktail. Coincidentally, some tiger swallow tail butterflies had been showing interest and there were a few eggs laid. The yellow jackets picked off some of the tiniest caterpillars but at least one survived to grow large enough for its bird dropping mimicry to work. I later found the dried chrysalis busted open, so I missed the metamorphosis, but wait, there were more. There were and are many more! There are about five of them living on my white sapote (Casimiroa edulis). Apparently that's a similar enough host plant on which they can feed. They are growing slowly, and I think there are a couple of parasitic tiny wasps controlling a couple. It's interesting to watch them hang out with the caterpillars 1-to-1. I'm not totally sure what's going on there, and I haven't researched it any. We'll wait to see if I get more butterflies or wasps.

Super Scionic

The jaboticabas are looking good this time of year. I think we had one week where the high temperatures hit 80°F, but that weeks weeks before summer was even officially here. Since then it has been in the high 60's and low 70's and overcast until noon. The Plinia like it though, and it seems like the grafts that I first made on my original rootstock are all taking off now. A few like Grimal, spirito-satensis, phitrantha (possible Esalq), and Coronata var. Restinga are pushing serious leaves, which are stunning little branches. Trunciflora is lagging but I think it's starting to go. Paulista and edulis are the only two that I'm not sure about yet. Maybe they'll take, maybe not. I have gradiflora and aureana coming soon, so I'll graft those scions on to really make it a proper cocktail. Now that I know I can do it with high efficacy that only seems to be dependent on the species/variety, I'm excited more than nervous.

I recently lost all the leaves and maybe the whole aureana plant that I had. The thing never seemed to grow. Red and Blue are growing slowly again. I also picked up three small plants ( "Otto Andersen, Paulista açú", Dwarf Red  "Precoce", and Escalarte, and some seedlings  "Rosa de Pescoço" and "Polpa Roxa". If all of these grow large enough, the'll eventually make their way onto the cocktail tree. I have a second root stock that has the refrigerated scions on it. I'll use that as a backup for everything once I'm convince the original grafts are fully healed and the scions are branching.

May Gray and Cool Scions

It's Memorial Day. I returned from an out of town trip half exhausted and half missing my garden. The latter won, and I decided to take the Jaboticaba scions that I received in mid-February out of the fridge. To my pleasure they looked externally as good as fresh. A few slices with my knife showed them to look the same on the inside. Plinia edulis might have been a bit off, but it was still moist and greenish. So, I took the remaining scions and grafted them to a Sabara that has been doing just fine since it arrived recently. This is a bit of an experiment. No one seemed quite sure if this tactic would work.

On a very related note, my tree grafted back in Feb is really pushing. At least one of each variety is showing life and pushing new leaves (expect perhaps P. edulis). I don't know what normal grafting success rates are especially in cool and overcast conditions, but I think the tightness with which I wrapped the white electrical tape may be important. Some reading noted that pressure is critical to cell differentiation and fluid/nutrient transmission. This along with stripping the stock leaves really seems to be the ticket...unless it's always this easy of course. We'll see what the forums say when I show off the cocktail tree once it's more fleshed out.

And back to the refrigerated tree...I can't wait to read what the forum people say to that if it works out positively. Wait and read.

April Fools Atemoya

It's April Fools day, and I was poking around in the yard, and I decided instead of an Easter egg I would have an atemoya. It's the only one to made it through the winter, on a plant that kept all its leaves and looks pretty good compared to all the other Annona sticks. There's not much more to say except that it makes me happy to harvest it. Hopefully this next season will set and keep more than one.

Cloudless Spring Day

I went to a plant sale at the local botanical garden. There wasn't anything interesting there sadly. Succulents and roses and salvias and orchids of all the usual kinds were represented, but nothing exotic fruit related. I stopped by the Armstrong Garden Center on the way home, and they had much more stuff. I was tempted by a few things, but nothing was a "must have"...except this one little thing that jumped out at me. There was something weird about one of the yellow flowers on some unremarkable shrub. I gave it a second look and it was a caterpillar...that I pocketed. It took about 3 minutes of internet research to identify it as a cloudless sulfur (Phoebis sennae). Apparently they eat herbaceous legumes in particular Cassia, so I clipped a couple of pea plant sprigs, and we'll see if it wants to dine, pupate, and fly away.

Update: One day later my caterpillar is a crysallis. This species takes 12 - 14 days to emerge, so it will be a short wait if all goes well inside. Obviously there will be another update shortly.

You Down with PPC?

I have several Annona plants in 7.5 gal planters, and recently I decided to purchase a bunch of 20 gal trash cans and modify them as planters. All that takes is a power drill with which I make about 50 holes in the can. I make my own airpots. It seems to work really well in keeping the roots from sitting in water. Anyway, I am waiting on some grafted Passiflora, for four of those cans. Two bananas when in a couple more. With that I have 4 cans left, and I made a poll online to see which of my atemoyas people recommended for the super-up-potting. Phat Pak Chong (PPC) won that poll, so into the can it went today. We'll have to wait and see if the pot size makes a big difference in its growth versus its similarly sized brothers and sisters.

Late Winter Cocktails

Spring is rapidly approaching. Buds are pushing on most everything, except on my 'Grimal' jaboticaba, which is almost completely refoliated. It's looking really good, and it inspired me to work on a cocktail jaboticaba for myself. I've seen them online and they're beautiful trees aside from having delicious fruit. I bought a 5' P. cauliflora to be the rootstock. Everyone uses 'Sabara', but I was feeling impulsive and just went for it. Then I picked up a bunch of scions from Flying Fox Fruits, and spent a whole day grafting them on to the tree. I also decided to lop off a lower branch on my 'Grimal' and graft that on as well. This is a first attempt at grafting Plinia, but being hardwood, I think it should be relatively successful. I have about 3 or 4 chances at each of the types below.

• P. coronata
• P. coronata var. 'Restinga'
• P. 'Grimal'
• P. phitrantha (possibly ESALQ)
• P. spiritosantensis

Update: I added three more types to the top of the rootstock, and picked up P. cauliflora 'Polpa Roxa' and P. phitrantha 'Rosa de Pescoço' seedlings and a small grafted Plinia sp. 'Escalarte'.

• P. trunciflora
• P. edulis (aka Cambuca)
• P. cauliflora var. 'Paulista'

Additionally, I picked up some types that were unlikely to be successfully grafted, and I'm giving rooting a shot. This could be low success, but it's worth a shot. I'm using some CD spindle covers as the outer pot/water reservoir, a clear solo cup as the pot. I filled the latter with 50/50 peat moss and coarse sand, and then drenched the whole thing with a 5.0 pH water. The cuttings I prepared by shaving off the lower centimeter of bark to expose the cambium just below a node and chopping all the leaves in half to reduce transpiration. Then I taped a gallon bag on top to keep the humidity around. We'll see if it works for these two.

• P. inflata
• P. rivularis