Phoenix Tropicals Gardening

[mullenium]

Went to visit family in San Diego over the Xmas weekend and had to stop by Ong's nursery on the way home. They run their nursery out of their house and have their entire front, back, and side yards just stuffed with every tropical fruit you can imagine.

She had some really nice large jaboticaba's but they were all sold and on hold, there was a smaller bonsai looking one in a ceramic bonsai pot I picked up (probably about 3ft tall with a nice 5 inch trunk diameter) she mentioned that shes unable to order any more jaboticaba for some reason?

I also picked up a really nice Miracle Fruit plant in a 3gal container, already has quite a few tiny pre-flowers growing. I know these are high humidity requirement plants so I need to find out how to MacGuyver some sorta humidity dome and just grow this as an indoor windowsill houseplant, for now its sitting next to a south facing window with bowls of water all around it, hoping these give it added humidity as a temporary solution

There was also some giant potted cherry of the rio grande trees (yes trees!) but that would have never fit in my jetta lol.

She had some really tasty Kishu mandarin's that I think I will try fit in the trunk when I got back in Jan

Do you think the Jaboticaba will grow as an indoor bonsai next to a south facing windowsill? or would I be better off growing it outside in a pot, or in the ground?

I'll have to take some pics later this week

[phoenixtropicals]

Sound's like a really neat place. Using a jaboticaba as a bonsai. That is an interesting thought. I think a jaboticaba would do better outside, but maybe keep it in a pot. That way you can move it around for optimal exposure, giving it early morning sun in the summer and full sun during fall, winter, and spring or something like that. Also, in a pot you can keep the soil more acidic. However, I have read many times that jaboticabas really like to have the ground moist, so in a pot you would need to make sure the dirt did not dry out.

I think its best not to transport citrus from California right now. There is a lot of concern about the Citrus Greening disease and while California doesn't have the disease yet they recently found the bug there that carries it.

Thanks for sharing your adventure.

[mullenium]

photos as promised:

Miracle Fruit (notice how they topped the plant to promote it bushing out)




jaboticaba:


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[phoenixtropicals]

Looks good!