Help me select fruit trees for my tropical yard!

Hey everybody,

I just bought a house in Aruba (I've been living here for 6 years, but finally have a place of my own) and am most excited about putting in some fruit trees. So far I have put in:

A Valencia Pride mango, which is healthy and growing incredibly fast, a Haden mango, which got root rot and probably needs to be replaced, a potted pomegranate, and a passion fruit vine - which grew about a foot a day until the iguanas found it and ate virtually ALL of its leaves!

There are also several beautiful trees, including the biggest flamboyan (royal poinciana) tree I've ever seen, 3 or 4 wayaca trees, a huge ficus and a fully grown almond. But the only other fruiting trees I have are an unidentified scraggly-looking orange tree and a barbados cherry. Luckily our neighbors have a key lime and a mango tree that both hang virtually all of their fruit over the wall into our yard. I have made more key lime pies in the past month than you could shake a stick at...


Anyway, for now I have two great spots to put in fruit trees and wanted feedback from the community about what I should get.

After much obsessive web research my shortlist:

- Rambutan
- Pulasan
- Another mango variety to complement the valencia pride (considering Florigon, Glenn, Carrie, Cogshall, Fairchild, Lancetilla)
- Sugar apple
- Kumquat
- Grapefruit
- Pummelo


My main criteria are 1) tastiness and 2) ability to fruit in the hot local climate. I live at sea level and the climate here never gets even slightly cool, which means unfortunately a lot of plants I was interested won't fruit here.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Recommendations of others I have overlooked?

Any feedback would be much appreciated!

I'd go around and find out what your neighbors have. Or see what your local nurseries have. Are you away from the eastern coast, with its' salty breeze?

For the mango, I'd choose one earlier or later than the one you have now.

I have three ratty orange trees that I want to cut back to five feet or so, and graft other citrus on. Maybe you could do that too. I don't really know how to do it, tho'!!

Aloha Happy, congratulations on your new home!

I live at sea level too, and was surprised to find how many fruits I can't grow well, there are quite a few things that would do much better just up the hill a bit, such as the sugar apple.

Have you thought about starfruit? One tree is more than enough for any family as they are heavy producers and crop twice, and sometimes three times a year. I believe there is quite a variance in sweetness among cultivars, so you have to choose according to taste! It's rather a pretty little tree too.

Figs are very reliable here - again, a couple of crops a year. Avocado, guava, papaya, sour sop, all citrus and pomegranate as well as mango are really easy. I haven't had too much luck with consistant crops from the lychee tree though... all of these trees grow very large if they are left to their own devices - just how much space do you have - LOL! Oh yes, and mulberry grows like mad.

I will be interested to see what you find to plant in those spots, best of luck with your brand new project!

Jenn

@Molamola

Yep, I'm a couple of blocks from the western coast, which is the sheltered side of the island. No salty breeze.

I have already hit the one real nursery on the island (dozens of times already, actually...) but they're not very sophisticated and can't give much helpful advice. Unfortunately none of my neighbors seems to put much effort into gardening either. The best resource I've found down here so far is the local department of agriculture. They're very friendly and helpful, but they spend most of their time trying to convince you to plant indigenous endangered species (like the wayaca, of which I already have at least 4)

@Braveheartsmom

Thanks for the reply! I got some good information off your post - sugar apple has officially been removed from the list and figs and starfruit added for consideration.

Another question for you: of the fruit trees that you grow, do you have any particular favorites? Do you know their cultivars?

Other possibilities include a banana tree (the descriptions on this site have got my head spinning: http://www.going-bananas.com/bananaplantdescriptions.htm ).

A non-fruit project is that I need a nice tall hedge to plant in front of the back wall for privacy. There's currently a ratty-looking hibiscus hedge that doesn't look like it will ever get tall enough to do its job (it would have to be thick and full up to about 10 feet). Have you had any luck with different types of hedge plants? I was checking out different types of bamboo today at the nursery, but am still undecided...

Hi Happy, show us some photos of Aruba! What is Wayaca?

Buy CLUMPING bamboo! Otherwise, it's giant wire grass that you need a backhoe to be rid of it.

Bananas get that tall...

For hedge bamboo: Bambusa multiplex.

Bananas: San Marzano (Apple), Cavendish, Spanish Red, Brazilians.

Citrus: Tangelo, Temple Tangor, Persian Lime (Tahitian), Dancy Tangerine, Washington Navel Orange, Caracara Orange, Honey Tangerine, Myer Lemon.

Avocado: Sharwill, Nagata, Murashigi. Get both Summer & Winter producing types.

Lychee: Kaimana & Bosworth.

Cherimoya: Bays, Deliciosa, McPherson, Whaley.

Soursop: Dulce, Fiberless Cuban, Whitman Fiberless.

Starapple: Lila, Haitian, Philipine Gold.

Chico Sapote / Sapodilla: Alano, Betawi, Gonzales, Ponderosa.

Breadfruit, Jackfruit, Abiu, Canistel, Mammey Sapote, Mammey Apple, Mountain Apple, Pineapple.

@metrosideros

Wayaca is the local word for the lignum vitae tree, which is supposedly one of the hardest woods. I can testify to this, since trying to remove old branches with a limbing saw is a major PITA! It is a pretty tree that creates a full round canopy with little blue and white flowers.

I'll post photos when I get a chance - right now I'm headed out to the yard to plant a little miracle fruit plant...

@metrosideros

Thanks for the great and informative post! Since it looks like you know what you're talking about I've got two questions for you:

1) do you think a rambutan tree would do well in our equatorial climate?

2) if you had room to plant only one of all of the trees that you posted about which would it be?

@molamola

Thanks for the thought about the clumping bamboo. I think I agree with your sentiment about the banana tree though - I'd much rather have a privacy hedge that also provides me with delicious fruit!

Rambutan, Nephelium lappaceum, is a tropical tree. It likes to be warm, but also needs lots of water to do well. On the windward sides of Hawai'i, Rambutan does well, but not so much on the leeward areas.

One tree? That would be a toss up between Temple Tangor (Royal Mandarin) the best peeling Citrus, and Minneola Tangelo the best juicing Citrus.

Barbados Cherry / Acerola, Maipighia emarginata, makes a very manageable hedge with edible fruit. Tropical Ruby and Manoa Sweet are good cultivars.

The Cavendish Banana makes a good hedge.

For Bamboos; Bambus multiplex makes the most manageable hedge. Dendrocalamus stricta, Iron Bamboo, would make a large border / hedge that produces edible shoots and useful timber.

How about a black sapote, the fruit tastes very much like chocolate pudding, but for sweet you cant beat the sugar apple, I live in south Florida and am having great success with mine, also bannana if you don't mind one tree turning into fifty.

The more I think about it I bananas seem to fit the bill. Tasty fruit. Quick growth. Easy to ship. So I am going to see if I can order three decent-sized banana trees from a nursery in Florida. Right now I am thinking about getting a Manzana (Apple), a Brazilian, and a Viente Cohol.

I was really hoping to get some citrus trees too (something along the lines of the temple recommended by metrosideros) but I have come to the realization that Florida's citrus nurseries are prohibited from exporting. Since my freight forwarder is in Florida I'm kinda stuck on the citrus front.

I love the manzana (apple) banana and the Brazilian reds. The thing about bananas though is that they do not like wind, it tatters their leaves and can blow them over. So, try and put them in a protected spot with lots of water and compost. Throw all your clippings on them to rot. The best spot I ever planted bananas were some manzanas in a sump behind a koi pond, when we drained the gunk off the bottom of the filter it went into their hole, I also dumped all their spent leaves and other clippings in there. They went crazy on that gunky pond water, lots of fish poop. They will spread out as long as there is water around them, you either need to use a shovel to cut off the pups in the wrong place or build a barrier.

The hibiscus will make a beautiful hedge where you are if it gets proper treatment. Cut it way back, give it fertilizer and water regularly, watch for spider mites and keep it pruned as it grows. They grow 15 to 20 feet high as a hedge on the Mexican Caribbean coast and very dense. The hotels use them a lot, of course they have teams of gardeners to clip, water and fertilize regularly.

If you have a rock wall in full sun, plant a pitaya vine. The fruit is wonderful, the flowers smell heavenly and to plant it all you do is take the pulp of a tasty fruit and smear it on the wall. I think it is called Dragon Fruit in English. It's a cactus looking vine that snakes around the wall.

I also like Mamey but you should try it and see if you like it. Many people don't. I think it tastes like sweet potato pie without the cinnamon, they are great in shakes and smoothies and ice cream. It's a large tree though, easily as big as a big flamboyán or mango and it fruits profusely, so if you don't like them it would be a pain although the iguanas love them. I have a friend with one tree and even though I like them I can't eat as many as she wants to get rid of. Same for the soursop, many don't like them. Jackfruit is wonderful but it is also an enormous tree, with enormous fruit.

I don't have room for large trees but I did have to have a sour orange and a Rangpur lime so I have both grafted on one tree growing in a large pot. The sour orange is I believe the Seville orange, here it is a staple in local cuisine and grows everywhere but only known as naranja agria (sour orange). It makes excellent marmelade, limonade, and is incredible when used as a marinade on chicken or pork. I add it to many dishes, it goes especially well with achiote (annato?) or honey in marinades.

Thanks for the informative post, extranjera! I just got back from a short vacation to the mountains and it was nice to find a helpful advice-filled post here.

So far I've got three bananas on the way (a brazilian, a namwa, and a raja puri) from Katie at going-bananas.com nursery. She was super cool and helpful by the way, and I highly recommend buying from her if anyone out there is looking for unusual banana varietals. She took a lot of time on the phone with me to help me figure out what would work for us here in Aruba.

I had been thinking about a pitaya, since we have tons of sun-covered walls, but I didn't know they were so easy to plant. I was looking on tropicalfruitnursery.com's site and they have several different varietals available. Could you possibly recommend any specifically?

I still have a spot for one decent-sized tree in the yard, which I would like to fill with the temple tangor recommended above by metrosideros. The problem is finding one...

That's an interesting site and they certainly have imaginative names for the pitaya, David Bowie and LA Woman. The last made me think of the line from that song, 'she's got a hand full of gimme and a mouth full of much obliged'. I have no idea about varieties, I had a good one a couple days ago and sacrificed a spoonful to smear on the wall so we'll see if that works. Here in Yucatan we have the white fleshed type but I have had the red in Central America and they taste very similar. If the nursery is correct and the red fleshed types have lycopene then I'd probably try those. I am kind of shocked at the prices though, $35 for a 3 gal and the shipping must be huge. They are almost weeds here so I'm sure they grow easily there as well, I'd just go to the market and see what others are growing there, eat a few and when you find one you like, plant some of the seeds. It is an epiphyte so doesn't need dirt.

I second the starfruit (carambola) suggestion. It's become our favorite --unusual, kids love them, crops 2-3 times per year, subtle taste, eat right off the tree, great "graphics" in the five-point star cross-section --what's not to like?

Mangoes have their drawbacks --yes, they're delicioius, but they fruit heavily quickly so usually everyone has them when you want to give them away. That said, different species and cultivars have different crop times, so shop around and get something that provides fruit when others don't.

What about pineapples? They will take a while to bear fruit, but I think they'd love the Aruba climate, and you can get an "orchard" going slowly over time, using the tops from fruit you buy for eating, and would otherwise throw away. Root the tops in a medium pot with a mix of 1/3 peat, 1/3 small lava stones and 1/3 local soil, with some time release fertilizer --start in partial sun, keep moist, then move to full sun and keep moist. Plant in the ground after well rooted (3 - 6 months), full sun.

This message was edited Jun 16, 2009 9:23 PM

Thanks for the thoughts you guys!

My current wish list now has a carambola on it (anyone recommend any good cultivars?), a temple orange, and pitaya. Getting them here in Aruba will be the issue.

For now my new banana plants will keep me company, and I'm going to concentrate on trying to get what I have healthy and strong again. My biggest worry is this somewhat-sickly orange tree we have in the front yard. It's a fairly old tree (trunk around 10" in diameter and about 15 feet tall) and it has quite a few dead branches on it.

Also, I have tons of leaves from a very big almond tree and am trying to figure out a good compost solution for yard trash as well as for kitchen scraps. If anyone had any good advice on that subject it would be much appreciated. My yard is fairly small, which means I'll need to have a closed-system barrel style composter (I think).

'Kary' is probably the best Star Fruit / Carambola, Averrhoa carambola; it has yellow-orange fruit with a pleasant sweet flavor.
'Fwang Tung' has larger greenish-yellow fruit, which is very crisp, but more tart.

metrosideros, where do you get all this great information? I love that you always can recommend specific varietals across so many different species!

Hi Happy, I grow a lot of plants and have a lot of books!

I like bananas. I have 4 clumps of them. They also make delicious fruit in a relatively quick time. However, I find banana trees to be messy. They are easily blown down in wind storms which makes more mess.

I love my avocado trees. I have 10 who go off at different times in summer and winter.

I just planted a beautiful new breadfruit tree.

I like flavor trees and have oranges and mangoes. However, my focus is a bit different from the original poster, I like to plant food (recession proof) trees.

Monroe avocado for Christmas and Simmonds or Tower for June / July.
Tamarind will do well.
Tommy Atkins mango will do well.
Carambola.
Skip the Rambutan and go with a Lychee cultivar.
Sapodilla should do fine .Delicious.
Breadfruit is easy.
Jackfruit will do well.

All of these work in the Florida keys so they should be fine in Aruba.

Check with nurseries in Venezuela.....unless you have a Nazi govt, like the US, that wont let you bring anything in ?

Also. Skip the "manzana" It's likely Manzana de agua and they are beautiful...but a real mess.The fruit ripens on one day and then 1000 lbs are on the ground a week later.

here in sunny south florida we are growing a fwang tung star fruit very well. it is excellent at taking a wind beating and then flushing out new growth soon after which is pretty important with hurricanes being so prevelant. We also have an ice cream bannana tree that is setting fruit as i type as well as having 4 pups. we have an immature fig that hasnt produced yet but is a quick grower. of course all types of citrus are doing well in our backyard. next pay day we are going to get a borneo red jakfruit, maurautis lychee, and probably a glen or tebow mango. we also have a carribean red papaya, chochet avacado, and arabica coffee doing well in pots waiting to be planted.

I just got done with a landscaping project that has opened up a spot for one more fruit tree. It's a somewhat shaded spot, with direct sunlight only in the late afternoon, so that's something to keep in mind.

The advice I need now is: what fruit tree should I get?

I'm currently considering:

-Mangosteen. This is my favorite fruit, so I'm willing to try to make it work, even though our dry climate here in Aruba is not ideal for mangosteens.

-garcinia laterifolia (sometimes referred to as "bolivian mangosteen"

-garcinia gardneriana (AKA "bakupari")

-plinia glomerata (AKA "yellow jaboticaba")


Does anyone have any experience with any of these trees?

Thanks in advance for the great advice I always get from you guys. The best advice wins a bushel of whatever fruit I end up growing, FOB Aruba.

How about a lemon tree? My neighbor behind us has two. They are huge and after the first year they started producing extremely well. We're on the bay, but probably don't have as much salt air as you do.

They grow really fast. I'm not sure what type of lemon they are, but the one tree is very full. There were more lemons than three of us neighbors could possibly use!

We lost a poster here recently because he was too enthusiastic about his yard. He'd bought a nice house on Salt Cay, in the Turks and Caicos. He didn't ask advice, he just posted about all the plants he was putting in, many not suitable for a tiny, arid, salty, soilless island. Nearly a whole container load, from his list. Shortly after he said he'd ordered or gotten the plnts, they had a terrible category three hurricane. We aven't heard from him since. But at least I did hear there were no casualties on the island.

Hi, I am the lost poster... I am grateful to say my house and yard survived the hurricane. I did ask advice, despite the above poster's nasty comment and have researched quite a bit. I have a small Mamee Apple that has been doing fairly well and has been in the ground about a year. Other trees that seem to be doing well are Sapote, black sapote, mango, canistel, nance, santol, longan, pomagrante, southern live oak, everbearing mulberry, guinup, tamarind. Im sure my spelling is off here:) I have been mulching with cut weeds, pine needles and seaweed with landscape fabric covered with rocks around the base of the tree. I shipped in a ton of earthworm castings which have been a wonderful fertilizer to mix with native "soil" and water absorbing crystals to get the seedlings started. ( this also adds trace elements like iron) I also mixed in peat moss in some especially high alkali areas (therre were salt crystals in the soil!) to balance the PH. Low PH soils deny trace elements to the trees so balancing your PH seems to be key. I have planted some warm weather legumes and salt tolerant grasses to produce mulch and try to keep the moisture in the ground.Most of my efforts have been an experiment but I do follow permaculture principals and I have done some companion planting with nitrogin fixing "native" trees and the seedlings really do well near them. (I cut them back or down when they get too big. Let me know if I can help in any way. Best, David

Hi! So glad to know that you are OK! Hope you had a Merry Christmas!

Jeanne

wow scull, your garden sounds incredible! I'm already running out of space in my small yard, but I love that long list of trees you've got going. I'm still working on possibly getting a Garcinia Laterifolia (achachairu, i think - the Garcinia naming system is a mess), since I'm too impatient to wait 7 years for a mangosteen to fruit.

by the way, in the past month or so I have planted a rose apple (flush with new growth) a malay apple (covered in beautiful new medium-green leaves), a slightly diseased grapefruit, a lime tree (which is in a fairly shady spot, but has already started to show some new leaves), a tangelo, and bunch of jatrophas. So far so good.

Hi Happyisland, It sounds like you are doing well!! When I bought my house, I had a small sugar apple tree and a yardful of thorny acacia so I guess I have come a long way LOL but I have a long way to go. My biggest challenge has been finding and gathering enough organic material to mulch everything. Of course water is always a challenge as I am on cistern water. To buy r/o water, I have to run 400 ft of hose.... I also have a gravity fed gray water branched drain system off one side of the house that waters 10 trees. I highly recommend it. Let me know as you discover methods that work. It sounds like we have similar challenges. How much rain do you get there? Dave

Hi Jeanne, Merry Christmas to you!! Yes, I lost a piece of roof and one tree but most of my new plantings made it through. Ike was category 4 when it hit. Many of my neighbors lost their entire roofs! Now, my house is repaired, most of my neighbors have new roofs and my 1/2 acre is doing OK. Of course, everyone there says new plantings are hit and miss for four years so I have not hit that mark yet:) But I will keep reading and keep trying... Dave

We had a lot of limbs down and some minor damage to the side of my house from IKE. It also damaged my smoke stack and blew my patio canopy down. All has been replaced.

A tree fell on one house in our neighborhood and a lot of roofing shingles and fences were lost. Further South down in Kema, Seabrook, Galveston, and High Island there was MAJOR damage. Alot of homes on the beach were leveled. Some still have not built back yet. We have much to be thankful for!

I am so thankful this year was quiet!!!!! It does take time for things to get back to normal.

Happy New Year Everyone!
Jeanne

Your garden sound great, Scull! What a lot of work you have done - I am so glad you were not hit too hard by Ike, so nice to see you posting and telling us how far you have come - we do like pictures you know!

We resorted to buying mulch for the garden from the green waste program, and it's made a huge difference, not only in water consumption but also in the constant weeding that I was doing everyday. My neighbor has a "wild garden" and the darn grass and weed seed travels over the five foot lava wall that is between us like it isn't even there!

It has been a good year for Starfruit for us, we are just now picking our fifth crop for the year (usually we get three) and I put it down to the heavy mulching as making the difference. We also had quite a large crop of Cherimoya - which doesn't usually do well in my area - it must be the mulch!

Happy New Year to one and all!

Jenn

BHM, have you made your own mulch? I have a few huge leaf-bearing trees, and I want to get started. I don't have a lawnmower to chop the leaves - can you recommend any other shredder?

I wouldn't give up on the Rambutans, we're about the same distance from the equator as you. We get a lot more rain but only in the wet season, the other half of the year there's no rain at all. Not being an island our humidity would be more up and down than yours. Rambutans are grown commercially here, a lot of it's for the high quality fruit market in Japan. Mangoes are usually planted around the Rambutans to act as a wind break. There's also Mangosteens but I don't think they do as well as the Rambutans.

A lot of my mulch comes from the leaf drop of my African Mahoganys. They drop an incredible amount of leaves at the start of the wet season. Charcoal is another good thing to get into the soil, particularly crushed. It has great nutrient and water retention capabilities.

Rambutans, Mangosteens, Lychee, all need lots of rain to do well. They are great in windward Hawai'i.

In dry areas, think Oranges, Mango, and Papaya.

There's a number of people here making lots of money out of Rambutans without "lots of rain" by supplying top quality fruit. There are Mangosteen orchards around but I don't think they produce so well. Lychees are a dead loss here, they need a cooler climate.

Here are a couple of photos from last summer....