This fall I'm planting Meyers lemons trees and Mandrin orange trees. Those should grow in my area. Plums should grow but I don't like plums that much, anyone have a suggestion for a fruit tree that will grow in 8b. It's not as easy as it sounds. I'm about 1 mile from the ocean and 10 miles from Savannah Ga. Peaches, apples, pears don't get enough cold days to fruit around here and on the other hand it's to cold for most citrus trees.
This message was edited Jul 9, 2006 11:06 PM
Anyone have a suggestion for fruit trees in zone 8b?
Try a Brown Turkey Fig Tree. If you don't particularly like the taste of figs, you can make strawberry preserves out of them by adding strawberry jello when preparing the preserves.
My wife likes figs, I'll check into that. Thanks.
How about persimmon? When I was a kid we had native ones that grew the tiniest, sweetest persimmons.
Soupcon's right on, a persimmon tree is attractive too!
I don't know anything about persimmon so that's a good one to check out. It would be nice to have some trees that no one else has too.
You might want to look into the japanese persimmons,because the native,although will grow there, will have a pungent tast, beceuse they ripen before a frost, the japanese don't.If you go with the japanese,then you want to try paw paw , they will be a banana tasting fruit,and a good companion to the persimmon.One other aspect of the paw paw , is they bring the zebra swallow tailed butterflies that alone is why I grow them,although the fruit is good, and there are recipets for a lot of uses for the fruit.Mike
This message was edited Jul 9, 2006 4:32 PM
Oooooh, I have always wanted a paw paw, too.
Satsumas should do o.k. in your location. They grow and fruit on islands off the coast of Georgia and are recommended for the 8B temperate zones. The figs and persimmon suggestion is good also. My aunt lives along the Gulf Coast and grows figs and persimmons in her yard with a great deal of success. Also, don't rule out pears. There are lots of varieties out there that can survive in your climate. While the hardier ones may not be the best for out-of-hand eating...they make wonderful preserves.
Cherries grow in zones 5-8, so the cold wouldn't bother them. Mulberries are fairly hardy, I think. I know they grew rampant along our local college campus, with little to no attention. Loquats are very hardy and flourish in my area which is 8B as well. I've seen some apples do well in my area, but I think it depends on the variety. Blueberries do well in this zone, and you can get the taller, more tree-like variety.
This message was edited Jul 12, 2006 4:53 PM
Hey Kim I'm making a lot of progress. Right now I have lowquats and I have two granny smith apple trees. Lowquats are young no fruit yet and surprisingly I've gotten apples the last 3 years but the trees are small, I only get 4 or 5 apples a tree. We'll see how those work out. Looks like I'm going to plant meyers lemon trees, mandrin orange trees and peach trees(junegold or harvester). That's all I have room for right now. I have another part of yard I'm not sure what to do with so I may try fig trees. I'm getting it narrowed down now.
In case your wondering I have about an acre of land. It was a timber forest so it's all pine and I hate pine trees so I'm basicly trying to get rid of all the pine but I still need shade. Basicly one side fruit etc, other side shade. Only problem is the shade trees take a long time to get big enough so I plant them around the pine. Pine goes as trees get big enough.
Egads! I hate pine trees too. I suppose mine isn't the best stance to take though, seeing as how Georgia seems to be full of nothing but. There's just so much not to like about them: can't burn the wood, gooey sap that gets in everything, ugly looking bark, and needles that not only are unattractive but get caught on everything. Our local campus has a pretty area full of camelias called the Camelia Walk, but you wouldn't know anything other than pine trees grew there. The leaves shed and get caught on the camelia bushes and hang there like dull, brown Christmas icicles. Blech!
My camellias have the brown ice iciles too. LOL. The pine are messy and large limbs fall off them just about every big storm which tends to be a safety issue. I have one pine that drops 10 cones a day, it's unbelieveable. Okay 10 may be to many but at least 2 a day.