Fruiting Tree Planting

Back in October of last year – 8 months ago – I put some fruiting trees and a bunch of other plants in a holding bed because we just weren’t getting around to planting them out. Then events overtook us for a few months and we left those plants to live, (some managed to thrive), in their holding bed. Here’s a picture from October followed by one from this week of the same location.

The mulberry tree in our garden is just starting to bud so we realised we had no more time to wait – the dormant season is very short in Sydney – and we had to get our fruiting trees in the ground if we didn’t want to lose a year of growth. So the 2 mulberry saplings (started from the tree in our garden in April 2011) and the pineapple guava found permanent homes.

The mulberries were planted near the parent plant in the bottom of the garden. (Obviously Frank needed close supervision by the chooks.) 

The Mulberry “Orchard” with Momma-tree in the middle

The pineapple guava is right in the middle of the front yard. This is outside my office window and, when the large deciduous tree at the front of the yard loses its leaves in winter, I’m very exposed to people walking along the footpath. Pineapple guava are a dense evergreen, grow to 4 metres tall and even make a good hedge so I should be shielded from most pedestrian traffic eventually.

The main attraction of the tree is actually the fruit. It’s supposed to be amazing – a cross between pineapple, guava and strawberry in flavour. I took 3 cuttings from the tree and stuck them in a pot. The guava isn’t self pollinating so I’m hoping to make a mate for the one we just planted out. With any luck, we’ll get a good harvest of this fruit in a few years. If not, at least I’ve got my privacy screen.

Pineapple Guava

I’m not sure what we’ll do with the rest of the plants in that bed. Some have died, in no small part due to the total lack of sun in this bed any more. It’s been covered by the avocado tree which is looking really good this year and the passion fruit has filled the fence on the northern side. The native raspberry has gone crazy and has even popped up in the next bed so I predict that these 2 beds will become the raspberry beds whether we like it or not.

Here’s what the bed looks like after pruning and transplanting. It needs something done to it, at least more soil to fill the holes before the raspberry makes that inaccessible.

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