MANGOES
Impossible you say?
Please tell that to the mango tree growing 2'-3' a year in an unprotected location outside at my Winters, CA ranch just 55 miles away as the crow flies from Pier 39 in San Francisco. I think it may disagree with you. It knows not that it is not supposed to grow here. This tree is incredibly vigorous and should fruit within 2-3 years being about 5 years old, as seedling plants take about 4-8 years to reach fruit bearing age. It's 10' tall now as of 8/2/18. I believe it is the northern most successfully grown unprotected mango tree in North America at 38.53 degrees north latitude. PROVE ME WRONG! If you send me a pic of your LARGER mango tree growing north of this point I will post it here and it will wear the crown of NORTH AMERICA'S MOST NORTHERLY MANGO. And if you say, "Oh, it may grow, but it will never fruit", THEN WATCH THIS! A tree I discovered growing in Pittsburg, CA at 37.9 degrees north latitude that produces prodigious amounts of fruit each year:
MANGOES FOR YOUR NORTHERN CALIFORNIA BACKYARD!!!
Golden Gate Palms offers for sale grafted mango cultivars such as 'Glenn' which is known for being an easy grower and heavy and reliable fruiter, to 'Bailey's Marvel' which is known as the most cold hardy mango, or "Carrie" that produces super delicious fruit on a smaller scale and is a compact dwarf tree perfect for smaller more compact gardens or even large container growing. There is no reason why these plants should not succeed for you if you place them in the hottest most frost free part of your garden with the most amount of light, and ideally, reflected light. A best place would be on a south facing wall right in front of a swimming pool that reflects up light onto the plant and moderates the temperature on cold nights. Bay Area microclimates that would be ideal for mangoes would be mostly frost free slopes of the Southern Bay Area such as Hayward, Fremont, San Jose etc where the temps are warmer because of the distance from the cold fog door of the Golden Gate opening, or open ocean exposure, or deep inland like places like Pittsburg, Antioch or Oakley where it also gets hot but where you are close to the delta waters which also moderate winter time lows. Or in most San Francisco Bay Area locales on sunny south, east, or west facing slopes well above the prevailing valley floors where heat is built up during the day and heavy cold air is drained off at night. Or even espaliered on any south facing wall where the warmth of the building will radiate out and protect the tree on cold frosty nights.
And if you live in the winter colder zones or want to give your baby tree the best chance possible, build a cold frame that can support frost protection cloth in Winter and grow these plants just about anywhere that heat builds up and keep them pruned each year to fit into the frost protection house and remove the cover from April - November. Better yet, do that and add some large water bottles around the tree and the water will act as a heat sink releasing relative heat when temps are at their lowest. Or throw some Xmas lights on the tree, or even a space heater. The whole trick is to not let young trees drop below 28 degrees and older mature trees below 25 degrees during the very few and far between hours that temps get that low in your garden. They are about as cold hardy as a common Meyer Lemon, Hibiscus plant, or Bougainvillea. If you kill those every year, then your microclimate is probably too cold, but if you see these types of plants thriving in your neighborhood, GAME ON!
BEST TO GO BIG!
Young mango trees, like all babies, are much more tender than their larger more mature counterparts. And although we strive to carry all sizes and accommodate all budgets, we highly recommend starting with the largest plants you can afford to allow the highest chance of success and establishment, as the larger the plants are that you start with, generally, the greater your success rate for establishment will be. We mainly sell slect superior select strain seedling plants sourced from known superior quality trees. We have found that, like avocados, grafted plants are not nearly as strong as seedling plants. But unlike avocados that are well within their climatic range in the SF Bay Area, Mangos are on the edge of their survivability range and as such need every advantage they can get. So we recommend the seedling grown trees because of this. And unlike avocados, mangos will begin to produce from seedling grown stock within 2-4 years and therefore you won't have to wait long to get a return on your investment.
SIZES AND PRICING
See the various sizes we sell below keeping in mind that all food producing product is sold sales tax free.
Yes, it is true, you can successfully grow AND FRUIT mangos in the San Francisco Bay Area and throughout low elevation Northern California UNPROTECTED in the best microclimates and with minor winter protection within the colder zones.
OK, if you are an extreme garden junkie like me, you will have noticed that you go through severe obsessive compulsive phases focusing on a narrow type of plants, a family, genus or even one specific cultivar. I tend to get especially excessively compulsive when it is a plant I love and I am told that it won't grow here. This springs me into action to prove everyone wrong. This was true of palms when I was told as a child that only 3 types of palms would grow in the Bay Area, now, over 40 years later, I sell over a hundred different types. Likewise, I was told subtropical gardening in the Bay Area was virtually impossible, yet now, I know of many more super awesome locally adapted gorgeous tropical plants than could ever be fit into one garden. We have too many choices. Then I was told that avocados won't grow here, which then spawned a 15 year obsession that continues to this day and an orchard of over 26 varieties thriving in on my back hill and a belly I need to manage more closely because of all those wonderful "good" fat calories I consume each day, let alone hundreds of trees that thrive and fruit all over the Bay Area that I myself grew and offered for sale at our nursery. What now????
Gary Gragg shows off mangos grown from a 14' tall tree in Pittsburg California that was never protected since being planted from a 5 gallon plant 8 years ago. Today it is 14' tall by 14' wide (as of 8/12/18) and fruits prolifically each year.
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