Growing Mangos/Mangoes in Los Angeles?

[imafan26]

With the climate you described mango should do fine outside year round. Mangoes prefer hot dry mircro-climates. They do not like cold or wet.

In Hawaii where mangoes used to be ubiquitous (alas not anymore as houses and yards have gotten a lot smaller and some HOA's will not allow any fruit trees in the front yard or any tree over 15 ft tall), mangoes grow best in the lower elevations that are drier like the leeward side of the islands. Mangoes in higher elevations like Wahiawa 800-1200 ft and other places like Mauna Kea and Haleakala you would be hard pressed to find a bearing mango tree or any mango tree for that matter. There are some mango trees in Wahiawa. They tend to be large shade trees and will only bear fruit in warm years. Pretty much Wahiawa residents will trade litchi for mango. A good litchi year has a colder winter and a good mango year has a warm winter.

If you start your mango from seed it will take about 5 years to fruit. Mango are like avocadoes some are good and some are not. If you get your tree to grow and you find a scion from a good tree you might want to try to graft one of the branches.

One of the most popular home trees are the Haden mango. It has large round fruit. Pirie is a good mango but not a very productive tree. It is pricey because of that. Common mangoes are small and not so common any more but they made the best pickle mango. Rapozas have large heavy fruit. There are other varieties but, these are the only ones I come across regularly.

This is a publication about growing mangoes in Hawaii but it may still have some useful tips for you.

https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/HC-2.pdf

[TheWaterbug]

applestar, I gave that exact same copper sprinkler/spinner to my Mom for Mother's Day a few years ago!

imafan, thanks for the tips. I'll read them carefully. Keitt and Valencia Pride are supposed to grow well here in So Cal, and the So Cal Breeders company is supposed to have selected only varieties that do well here. I don't know about Kent, but it's putting out lots of new leaves right now, so it's not unhappy.

[TheWaterbug]

Those photos are a few weeks old. I took a picture of one of my three remaining Keitt fruit yesterday:



This is the largest of the three (the others all dropped off or got eaten , and it's about the size of a flattened duck egg. The other two (visible in the background) are about hen-egg-sized. Two of them have been pecked , which is why they're bleeding sap.

I just bought a box of mangos from 99 Ranch, and they had giant Keitts from Mexico, 5 to a box, and they're nearly the size of an ostrich egg! I'd be happy if mine get half that size. Actually, I don't even care about size as long as they taste good.

[applestar]

Looks like you will need to "cage" these as well. Time to put on the ol' thinking cap!

[adeliverygirl]

Hi! I'm wondering if you had any luck with those three mangoes. I saw on pinterest that you can use plastic clam shells (similar to the ones strawberries are pack in) to place around your mango to protect it as it grows. I'm sure cutting a small part of the plastic to allow for the growing stem might be helpful as well.

I'm in Alhambra and my young manila mango tree has many blossoms. So I'm looking for tips to make this actually happen.