Phoenix Tropicals Gardening

[phoenixtropicals]

My Keller mango is really flowering this year. I'm hoping this will mean lots of mangoes!

When I mow the lawn I dump a thin layer of grass clippings around the base of my mango, so that is why it looks different than the surrounding grass there.

[raimeiken]

awesome looking mango tree man!

how old is it?

[phoenixtropicals]

10 years old. It is a seedling and has been frozen back twice. It was frozen all the way to the ground in 2007 and froze back a couple of feet the winter before last (Feb 2010). It has successfully fruited just once in the summer of 2009 and the fruit were great. That was the first time it fruited. I expect it to fruit every year at this stage if it doesn't get freeze damage the preceding winter. Seedlings are generally supposed to take 8 years to start fruiting and mine took about 7 years.

[Dauntless]

Do you keep the same watering and fertilizing schedule when the trees are in bloom and fruiting as normal?

My Pickering has lots of flowers for it's size and I would love to just get at least one to try so I need all of the help I can get

Your tree looks really healthy. I'm envious.

[myamberdog]

A real survivor, PT. I've heard that Potassium is good for older trees, in fact i think that guy at Fairchild Gardens in Florida recommends ONLY using that on them, and I'm assuming it's for good fruit production....

Of course you'll show us pics as they ripen

Keller...don't know a lot about that one.....fiberless?


myamberwoofwoof

[phoenixtropicals]

I named it Keller because its a seedling and that's my last name. Yes, its fiberless. I got really lucky with this seedling because you never know what your going to get.

I try not to fertilize it when its flowering. I'm afraid to burn the flowers. I think they can be more sensitive then the leaves.

It gets potassium with the fish emulsion 5-1-1, although not a lot of it. I find the fish emulsion 0-10-10 to be a little salty so I don't use it on the mangoes anymore. I do use it on some plants that are very potassium hungry, like my pacay. I am more careful overall with the 0-10-10 than with the 5-1-1.

I'm really moving into doing more and more mulching these days. Everything seems to do better with some mulch under its canopy.

[myamberdog]

oh..how interesting...how did you know Keller was a new hydrid? How did that all happen?

I agree with you on the mulch thing - it is soooooo underated in our desert conditions and a real key to keeping cool healthy roots in our summers......I'm getting grass clippings once a week from a neighbor's gardener and starting to compost it with my kitchen scraps.

Should be a good mango summer.....


myamberfang

[phoenixtropicals]

Seedlings are always unique, unless they are from polyembryonic mangoes like Manilas. This is an Indian mango so the seed is the crossing of genes between its parents.