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Key Takeaways from Taylor Walker:
- Once fruits get through their first few years they tend to be much more cold hardy.
- Every design that they do comes with an education component that comes with it. Free admission to classes, how to guides.
- They are also experimenting with offering a quarterly checkup. Check the plants, check irrigation, do any pruning.
- Site tours and classes help set the stage for the design component.
- Give people a reading list of websites and books on consultations.
- For design consultations ask.. “How much time do you want to spend on this?” Then design accordingly. This aligns expectations and gets everyone on the same page.
- Education is a great way to market your design services. Also gives you a way to sell plants. Get’s you face to face with clients and the community.
- Don’t undervalue face to face marketing and real life in person connections.
- Microclimates can allow you to plant a lot of species out of climate zone.
Fruits Mentioned in this Episode:
Passion Fruit, Passiflora edulis and P. edulis flaviacarpa:
We are currently working with 7 tried and true cultivars, and starting seeds from promising cultivars for trial.Working on obtaining various other edible Passiflora species, over 30 choice edible Passiflora species known, over 500 species in the genus Passiflora. We are growing passion fruit vines using existing trees (mainly oaks) as a living trellis. You have to use string or bamboo poles to get the vines up into the canopy as they have a hard time grabbing onto the larger trunks of the oaks. Once in the canopy these vines go nuts and will cover the tree in one summer. The great advantages are vertical stacking, space conservation, frost protection, and moisture conservation (roots in shade under oaks). One of the few vine crops that can be grown up trees without the hassle of harvesting fruits as they drop to the ground when ripe, and their thick leathery skins and light weight of each fruit keep them protected when they fall onto mulch, grass, or understory plantings. Propagation is through stem cuttings, grafting, or by seed.
Passion Fruit.
Edible Leaf Hibiscus (Malvaceae):
All hibiscus have edible flowers, many have edible leaves while only a handful of species have choice edible leaves. “Edible Hibiscus,” Lettuce Leaf Hibiscus, Cranberry hibiscus, Jamaican Sorrel, Roselle, Kenaf, and a close relative molokhia. Propagation is through seed or cuttings. Kenafand Molokhia
Cranberry hibiscus. Image: Wikipedia
Pigeon Pea- Cajanus cajan:
Nitrogen Fixing, support plant, edible peas, fodder crop, firewood, and living trellis. We have a variety that we have been selecting for cold tolerance, seed size, seed color, and yield, originally obtained seed from ECHO in Ft. Myers, a must see location for those interested in subtropical agroforestry and appropriate technologies. We are sharing and selling this seed as Estero Red.
Pigeon Pea. Image: Wikipedia
Jackfruit- Artocarpus heteroph
Largest tree born fruit. The largest specimen recorded weighed over 150 lbsfrom India, from a select cultivar, in prime growing conditions, with fruit thinned to less than 15/tree/season.Leaves edible when young, edible flowers, edible immature fruit, edible green mature fruit, edible ripe fruit, edible nut like seeds, useful sap, excellent yellow wood for building and instruments/fine crafts, drought tolerant, salt tolerant, extremely fast growing (six feet a year under prime conditions, we have had one fruit in two years from seed! Three, thirty pound fruit! Propagated by seed and grafting.
Jackfruit. Image: Wikipedia
Mulberry- Morus nigra, Morus R
Fruit crop, edible leaf, fodder crop, living fence, living trellis,wildlife fodder. We are espaliering mulberries down our entrance fence for ease of harvest and as a demonstration to this cool technique, we are also open growing mulberries as small trees and coppicing selected cultivars for leaf production. Propagating through cuttings and grafting.
Morus alba. Image: Wikipedia
Rollinia deliciosa – Bariba:
Biriba is a fast-growing, flood-tolerant, sun-loving tropical tree, with leaves up to 35 cm long. It can reach a height of 4–15 m (13–49 ft), which can bear fruit from seed within 3 years. The fruit is large, conical or round, green when unripe, ripening to yellow. Its surface is covered with soft spines or protuberances which bruise and blacken with handling, giving it an unappealing appearance. This delicacy, together with a shelf life of less than a week has limited its commercial cultivation. However it is an increasingly popular tree for homestead cultivation in tropical areas.
The fruit pulp is very soft and sweet, tasting somewhat like a lemon meringue pie. Some reports of the flavor are extremely favorable, others more moderate. It is generally eaten out of hand, though some chefs have used it for cooking, and wine has been made out of it in Brazil.” Source: Wikipedia
Bariba. Image: Wikipedia
Connect with Taylor Walker and Green Dreams:
You can contact Taylor via.. greendreamsfl [AT] yahoo [dot] com
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Comments 1
For those in colder climates that want a perennial legume shrub/small tree, Siberian pea shrubs and yellowhorn are two potential choices.
One of my favorite legume ‘pea trees’ is Eastern redbud, Cercis canadensis. Wonderfully ornamental, native to the northeast region, and it provides several different ‘crops’: the flowers, young leaves, young pods, and seeds are all edible. Hardy to USDA Hardiness Zone 5 or so.
‘Maypop’ is an edible passionfruit that grows far north of Florida. Passiflora incarnata is hardy to USDA H-zone 6, or so. Leaves as well as the fruits are reportedly edible. (Source: http://www.EatTheWeeds.com In addition to ‘weeds’, this site has a wealth of well-researched information on edible plants commonly grown as ornamentals.)
On the giant jackfruit – the size is impressive! That said, I am curious about the total production of the tree. Total production in sizes easier to handle and/or store is more important to me for most fruiting plants than the size of the fruits alone.
Another great interview. Landscapes that are edible AND ornamental! The only kind of yard that makes sense.