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Sun, Feb 24, 13 at 20:33
| Anybody have experience with this? |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| There is not a prayer of growing these tropical trees outside here, if that is your question. |
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| Inside without a light and heat expenditure is a faint prayer as well. Kind of like my time living there. |
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- Posted by Dzitmoidonc 6 (My Page) on Mon, Feb 25, 13 at 0:04
| C'mon guys, one can dream. If it is in a "warm" Seattle microclimate, with good drainage and gets supplemental light, maybe the tree would not defoliate every year. Assuming it only freezes every 3 years, is protected from the constant winter moisture and has warm dry air blowing across it, I bet you could grow one. To get the fruit to ripen, all you need to do is get the lights from the Safeco Field during their off season. They're not using them and you have a Mango tree to grow. |
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| Throw the pit away with that little sprout, IOW. And the avocado too. |
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- Posted by NormKeegel none (My Page) on Mon, Feb 25, 13 at 1:33
| Ok I get it. Just dreaming because it's hard to get tasty mangoes in the groceries here. guess they are picked green so they can survive the trip. |
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| :o) IMHO the closest you can get to tropical luxury to drive away the gray is kiwi. |
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- Posted by NormKeegel 8 (My Page) on Mon, Feb 25, 13 at 9:36
| Hmm... I've been told that Asian American persimmons will grow here. Do you say they won't? |
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| If you are interested in alternative fruits this is a good place. Their small stock can be light but I have been impressed by some of their larger field-grown plants. They are a grower, not just a retailer that buys in everything and sits on it until it sells. |
Here is a link that might be useful: Burnt Ridge
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- Posted by greenthumbzdude (My Page) on Mon, Feb 25, 13 at 14:42
| Mangos need a lot of sunlight to get fruit. From what I hear about the Pacific Northwest its a cloudy/rainy place for most of the year. |
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- Posted by gardengal48 PNW zone 8 (My Page) on Mon, Feb 25, 13 at 17:58
| Norm, I'm not sure where you are shopping but ripe mangos are not at all hard to locate in the Seattle area. Try looking at places like Whole Foods, PCC or Central Market or where they have a wide and very high quality produce selection. You may have to spend some $$ for 'em but the quality is worth it. Mangos, papayas, dragon fruit, star fruit, finger citrus......I've found them all. Persimmons are not exactly considered a "tropical" fruit....any more so than figs or kiwis. They are all native to temperate climes. And it may be best for those who are not intimately familiar with the PNW climate not to make assumptions about it - they are usually inaccurate :-) |
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| I agree with gardengal. I used to get mangoes fairly easily at a little hippie fruit stand in the northern part of the U District, as well as PCC, sometimes you can get good prices at your favorite little store in Chinatown... |
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| How many winters in Seattle have been truly freeze free? As in, not going below 30F? Ages ago supposedly London had a string of mild winters and there was a report of a mango that got to 15' or so in a very sheltered courtyard. Could just have been "woo woo". London is milder than Seattle, but not by enough that I believe this story. |
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| We're at least 2 USDA zones too low for these here, even those examples I have seen in mildest southern coastal California did not look completely at home. In lowland Hawaii it makes a big, vigorous tree, here on the mainland it is really only possible to grow it at all in southern California and southern Florida. As with walnuts the fruits are peppered about the tree, more or less in widely spaced bunches - it seems a small, bushy specimen in a marginal climate is probably not going to be good for much production. |
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- Posted by NormKeegel none (My Page) on Wed, Feb 27, 13 at 0:35
| I've abandoned the idea. |
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| Nice to dream in mid-winter. When I lived under Rainier I used to have all sorts of plans to drive the gray away. |
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| I think that it would be possible to grow mangoes in the Seattle area. Heck, if someone in Ohio, Massachusetts, and New York are doing it, why couldn't we? (Granted, those individuals are growing the trees indoors and putting them outdoors in Summer.) But, in fact, one was growing a tree in the basement using, from what I could tell, just artificial lighting! But I do think it would be time intensive. There was also a guy in Florence, Italy who was growing a mango outside. Although it did survive one winter (where there was a dusting of snow and was near freezing for weeks on end), he hasn't posted since September 2012... But Florence does get into the 90s in the Summer and seems to be a bit warmer in Winter. If I get some time, like in August, I may experiment with this - although it's definitely a low priority right now. |
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