Mature Air-layered Kohala Longan

If you envision greener pastures through rose-tinted glasses, grow Sri Chompoo ‘Pink’ Longan. This variety bears classic tan clusters of Longan fruits that have rose-tinted flesh and a smaller seed than other Longan types. Longan will fill the gardening gaps for those who yearn for the lush forests, ornate temples, and storied ruins of Thailand, without the plane ticket.  A close relative of the classic Asian dessert fruit Lychee, Longan fruit can be enjoyed fresh off the tree, or chilled and prepared for desserts, candy, or canning. However, Longans are more often used for medicinal purposes than lychee. Longan fruit benefits include antidotes for stomach ache, insomnia and reportedly poisonous snake bites. Dried leaves contain quercetin and quercitrin, and flowers of Longan are also sold for the makings of Chinese herbal medicine.

You will cherish the vigorous growth tendencies of the Longan, with proper establishment in well-drained soil that can hold nutrients and moisture. Eventually, Longan trees will reward laborious gardeners with a statuesque height, which can be admired under a dense canopy of glossy, evergreen leaves. Establish the Longan with generous watering in its first couple of years, and enjoy bundles of fruit for its entire life. Longan trees will fare best in subtropical climates with a distinct cool season, which will be its prime flowering period.

Grafted and Ready to Produce!

Carambola, commonly known as Star Fruit for it's crisp star-shaped fruit, is a fast-growing, heavy producing tropical fruit tree. The Kajang Variety is large and sweet. 

Carambola produces prolific and gorgeous, pink, purple, and white flowers. These flowers stem off of woody branches, and bear a lot of fruit in the summer and fall. Carambola will bloom throughout most of the year, but prominently throughout May and September/October.  The bright yellow to orange fruit is naturally waxy and each fruit is about 4-6" long. Length and width varies slightly by cultivar. The flavor is similar to a sweet-tart blend of green apple, pear, grape, and citrus. In Florida, harvest season is generally from June through February, with peaks in fruit production during August through September, and December through February.  

Star Fruit is easy to grow in a container and can thrive in a large pot. In the colder months they may loose their leaves, so they should be overwintered indoors if temperatures reach below freezing! Prune Carambola trees in late winter.

Grafted and Ready to Produce!

Carambola, commonly known as Star Fruit for it's crisp star-shaped fruit, is a fast-growing, heavy producing tropical fruit tree. The Fwang Tung is a Thai Carambola cultivar known for being an especially prolific producer with very large, very pronounced star-shaped fruit. Fwang Tung fruit is especially sweet with a delicious grape-like flavor.  

Carambola produces prolific and gorgeous, pink, purple, and white flowers. These flowers stem off of woody branches, and bear a lot of fruit in the summer and fall. Carambola will bloom throughout most of the year, but prominently throughout May and September/October.  The bright yellow fruit is naturally waxy and each fruit is about 4-6" long.  The flavor is similar to a sweet-tart blend of green apple, pear, grape, and citrus. In Florida, harvest season is generally from June through February, with peaks in fruit production during August through September, and December through February.  

Star Fruit is easy to grow in a container and can thrive in a large pot. In the colder months they may loose their leaves, so they should be overwintered indoors if temperatures reach below freezing! Prune Carambola trees in late winter.

Canistel, also known as Eggfruit, Yellow Sapote or Tiesa, is a tropical evergreen tree that produces a delicious fruit with a really unique flavor.  Canistel fruit tastes like maple syrup coated sweet potatoes with a  texture that's simultaneously smooth, dry, creamy, and flaky. This grafted Fairchild #2 Canistel cultivar produces a slightly smaller fruit than other varieties, and can be harvested year-round! The fruit is deliciously moist, not at all chalky, and has a great quality flavor.  Canistel fruit should typically be harvested when fruit turn yellow-orange. Allow fruit 3 to 10 days to ripen at room temperature. Ripe fruit is soft but not super mushy. 

Canistel is commonly found in Southern Mexico, Central America, parts of Southeast Asia and tropical biomes throughout the world. In the wild it can generally be found in wetland forests in areas of low elevation. Canistel will grow well in a container as long as you provide enough space for root growth. If taking on the task of growing this tropical fruit tree in colder climates, can be dwarfed with the right amount of commitment and can be overwintered indoors. Planted outside our trees survived severe damage at 24 degrees,  growing back from the base.

Mature Grafted Fruit Tree

The delicious Black Sapote is a highly saught after rare tropical fruit tree. A popular name for Black Sapote is Chocolate Pudding fruit, and rightfully so.  Like all sapote-named fruit, the inner flesh is thick and custardy  with a warm and fruity cacao like flavor. 

Black Sapote tropical fruit tree is native to Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and into Colombia. Growing Black Sapote does not require a lot of close attention in the right climate, but it is best to be aware of its growth once it comes time to fruit. Black Sapote trees grow leafy and dense, producing fruit prolifically in subtropical climates, where they do not need much coddling once established. The fruits have a tendency to mature quickly, weighing down on the edges of branches, and falling to the ground. The result of a fallen Black Sapote fruit is a messy splash of pudding cups. When properly harvested, the fruit serves as a dessert staple, similar to typical Sapote varieties. It can be prepared raw for use in fresh desserts, cooked into pies and pastries, or blended into a fresh drink.

In the world of Sapotes, Black Sapote (Diospyros digyna) is simply misunderstood: Related to neither the Sapote (Pouteria sapota), nor the white Sapote (Casimiroa edulis), Black Sapote is actually in the persimmon family of plants, Ebenaceae. The misalignment with Sapotes comes from the nature of its fruit, which shares the creamy texture characteristic of White Sapote fruit and other Sapote like tropical fruits. 

Mature Grafted Fruit Tree

The Mamey Sapote is a large evergreen tropical tree that produces a large fruit that is both sweet and almond-like in flavor.  Beloved in the Caribbean and throughout the tropical world, the Mamey Sapote fruit tastes like a delicious combination of sweet potato and pumpkin with undertones of almond, chocolate, honey, and vanilla. On the outside, Mamey Sapote fruit is brown and fuzzy, but on the inside the deep golden red-orange pulp is smooth and slightly granular.  Mamey's rich flavor has made it popular as a dessert fruit.  Fruit can be frozen and made into thick smoothies, milkshakes or ice cream. 

The Mamey tree is a close relative of Canistel has a thick central trunk and a full open canopy lush with long dark green  leaves.  Small white flowers form abundantly in clusters towards the end of the stems.  Sapote fruit is slightly avocado shaped and vary in size from 3 to 8 inches long and 1 to 6 pounds. Mamey sapote trees will fruit prolifically when mature, producing 200 to 500 fruits in a season! 

This superior and very rare Mamey Sapote cultivar has a history as rich and unique as it's coveted flavor.  The Key West Mamey (aka the Pantin Mamey) was discovered growing near a fire station in Key West, Florida. "The seeds of this tree were believed to come from Cuba by way of 19th century dissidents who left the island at that time. The tree was originally called the Key West Mamey Sapote until it was selected and propagated by Eugenio Pantin in the early 1950s. The story goes that a Cuban émegré named Josefina Jimenez smuggled three Mamey seeds into the US in her brassiere and gave them to Pantin, who grew them as seedling rootstocks, onto which he grafted budwood of the Key West Mamey tree. Pantin then proceeded to plant a small commercial orchard in Miami-Dade County, Florida. After his death in 1963, Eugenio's son, Donald, took over the family business, and nurseryman, Lawrence Zill, who had recognized the potential of Eugenio's prized cultivar, named it the Pantin Mamey Sapote."