Lins83
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Our kumquat tree, what is it doing?!

Hi everyone! In the late 80’s/early 90’s my Nan visited Italy and returned with a seed from a kumquat fruit she’d eaten. She grew it in a pot for a few years and later gave it as a gift to my mum and dad. It’s now enormous having been planted in the ground for easily 25 years, but has only given us fruit once around 20 years ago.

It’s now October and it’s covered in large buds, which I assume become flowers...but am not sure. Is our old tree confused?! It’s been an unusually long hot and dry summer here in the UK (I’m in Essex, UK) Could this be why? It’s really grown this year too so I do hope it’s happy :)
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Kumquat bud
Kumquat bud

imafan26
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I think it relished the warmer weather and that has triggered it to fruit.

Lins83
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Yay! Thanks for the reply :) Well, as long as it doesn’t get real cold I’d love to finally have fruit from it! Have you any idea how long it usually would take for it to flower and grow fruit? I suspect winter will kick in in a month or 2 :/

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!potatoes!
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that's not a kumquat tree, it's a loquat. I have one as well, grown from seed. they usually flower in winter and try to fruit in early spring (which will never work where I am), but this year, mine's doing the same thing, flowering early. I have some growing fruits already on mine, so I may be more protective this year to try to get mature fruit...mine's in a pot still, at about 17 years old. it does seem to take a few months to get fruit to mature.

Lins83
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That’s amazing! Never heard of a loquat, mind you had never heard of a kumquat until my mum said that’s what she thinks it’s called! We are set for a cold winter so I really hope it’ll still fruit.. good luck with yours and thank you so much for that :)

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applestar
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Oh wow, I was ID’ing the photos as loquat and never noticed the topic title said kumquat. :roll:
...PM me if you would like me to edit the topic title differently...

Look up kumquats, they are tiny citrus with thin edible sweet skin, and if your area doesn’t freeze you could definitely be growing them too. I finally bought a round fruited cultivar called “Meiwa” but I have to grow it in a container and bring inside for the winter. I believe the more familiar kumquats are elongated shaped like grapes and grape cherry tomatoes.

!potatoes! - how big is your 17 year old loquat and what kind of container do you have it in? :shock:

imafan26
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Good catch. I was only looking at the flowers and not at the tree. I have seen only small kumquats and few loquats. It is not as popular as a yard tree.

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!potatoes!
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applestar wrote:!potatoes! - how big is your 17 year old loquat and what kind of container do you have it in? :shock:
it's not big, and probably horrifically potbound. caliper is about 2" at the base, and the tree is maybe 5' tall, pot and all. the pot is somewhere in the 15-18" range, both in height and width. biggest fruit is now about dime-sized!

the loquat is in that class of plants that I usually leave outside unless its going to get below 20F. might be a little nicer to it this year.

Lins83
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I’m checking ours everyday now haha it’s quite exciting seeing as I’ve never seen it flower, only just about remember the fruit as it was so long ago in my childhood!

I’ve looked online about loquats and it says not all are self fertilising. If this is correct would it be likely that ours isn’t? Or would it be down to our british weather?! Also that they can grow up to 25-30ft lol yikes!

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!potatoes!
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if this tree gave fruit in the past (and considering the lack of other local loquat trees to you), it's at least partially self-fertile.

I was just reading that it takes them about 90 days from the flowers being fully open to ripen.



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