G'day folks, I'm new to the forum and need a little advice please. I live in White River South Africa close to the Kruger National Park. Home is about 3000 feet above sea level and we enjoy summers (when we get our rain) from about October to around June and our cold dry season is about July to September. Summer temperatures get up to about 35C/95F and winter nights go occasionally go down to about -2C/28F and we get occasional early morning light frosts. Soil is mostly fast draining and sandy. I want to plant the following trees and hope someone can tell me if they're suitable for the weather, need full sun, part shade or shade and if I need to plant more than one of each to get pollenation for fruit. Trees are: Navel orange, lime, mango, avacado and lychee. FWIW, I planted bananas about 4 or 5 years ago and the highest they've grown is about 3 or 4 feet. Hope someone can help and thanks in advance.
The citrus and mango will probably do just fine; give the citrus partial shade until they're about 6 feet tall, and after that paint the trunks white to keep them from getting fried. For luck and strength, plant at least two of each of these. You can shelter them under your bananas while they're little. The lychee will want a lot more moisture and humidity than you say you're getting. Consider something like Dragonfruit (Hylocerus spp) instead for a really moisture-filled fruit; if you're tied to the lychee flavour try growing a Jackfruit, which is a larger fruit and a lot less tempremental in both the short and long runs. The avocado won't like the frost temps while it's young (up to 2 years after it starts fruiting) unless you burlap and mulch it, and normally avocadoes don't fruit until they're about 10 years old. Sun and drought hardy, though; if you get one to bloom, make sure it gets water daily to encourage fruiting. It will love that soil mix, though. And one more caution - get one that has been grafted onto mature rootstock, rather than one started from a pit; they don't come all that true from seed. Are your bananas in full sun and wind? And have you mulched them in over the winters? This may account for their stunted growth pattern. Also, what type are they?
Thanks, I hadn't thought of jackfruit as I haven't seen them growing in the area, but I'll check it out and see if there's any available. All the trees Iplant will be bought from garden centres and be grafts rather than grown from pits, so that shouldn't be a problem. The banana trees are in full sun for part of the day and then they get shade and they're all in fairly sheltered locations. One clump is planted close to a fever tree and I wonder if that takes a lot of water from the bananas? The other less successful clump of bananas only ever grows to just a few inches high. I'm afraid I have no idea of exactly what kind of bananas they are as they were given to me by a friend who had very successful bananas for many years, but he's now sold his property and moved away. All I can tell you is that the fruit are fairly small and will be some kind of local African variety. However, I've never given them any kind of frost protection but will make a point of doing so (for all the trees) at the end of the summer. - Thanks for the suggestion. Can I ask if any of these trees require a second tree for cross pollenation to produce fruit? - Although I have room to pant 2 of some trees, I don't have room to plant 2 of everything so want to plant carefully?
The mango, jackfruit, and avocado are all self-fertile if I recall correctly (ask your garden center about which variety of mango it is.) Citrus will require two citrus trees to pollinate, but they need not be the same species: Mandarins and Tangerines are the most cold-hardy of the trees, and you can plant one of each and they'll cross-pollinate freely.
