Re: Dragon Fruit
 

Yes I've tasted one. Of the three varieties I have the red flesh is the best then yellow then white. Their all good it comes down to how concentrated the flavor is.

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American Beauty Cuttings

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I just planted another American Beauty myself. FYI - in case you didn't catch earlier comments I made, it's also known as Quang Ong Self-Fertile which is notable since many red-fleshed varieties are not self-fertile.

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Thanks Harvey. I've read a few things on American Beauty. I'm so glad its self fertile. I'm just worried about making something to support it in a container. I have some PVC pipe now but I dont think its thick enough to eventually support a large plant. I thought that the American Beauty were a pink fleshed variety

Re: Dragon Fruit
 

Yes, it's more accurately a magenta/pink colored, not one of the darker red ones. Most of the self-fertile ones are white although from my two trips to Nicaragua it seems that the red ones there are often self-fertile since I've seen isolated solitary plants with lots of fruit.

Quite a few people use PVC pipe for support successfully though I would think it's got to be at least schedule 40 and I think most people paint it to increase it's lifespan. I'm using a 4x4 with a rebar cross at the top. Mine are all in large pots so that I can move them to protect them in the event of an Arctic blast, but I may plant some hardy white ones in the ground this year since unprotected ones showed no damage when exposed to about 15 days of frost and lows down to 26F this past winter. It's a white selection from George Emerich of Fallbrook, CA which is informally called "George".

Re: Dragon Fruit
 

I have another one called Natural Mystic that is a red fleshed variety. It hasnt shown any new growth yet, but it does have roots. Could you give me more info about that variety? I dont know much about different types of PVC pipe, but I did hear someone talk about painting it with a weather resistant paint. Could I make a T shape support out of PVC? I have mine in 3 gallon containers. I know eventually I may have to get a bigger container, but I'm afraid of the plant eventually tipping the pot over from top heavy.
I didnt know there were hardy dragon fruit. I dont think I could grow them outside in my climate though, here we do get occasional snow or ice storms or bad cold snaps. I would still like to learn more about that variety.

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I don't have any personal experience with Natural Mystic but Pine Island Nursery says it's a magenta-colored variety from Thailand and that it too is self-fertile (the only other one they carry besides QOSF/AB). A grower in Mexico has confirmed this.

What I think you might want to do is to use a PVC cross (or I guess a cross and then above that a T) at the top of a center pipe and then go out about 2' each way at the top with additional pipes. At the end of those, you could use elbows without gluing them in and then have pipes going down to the ground to keep your plant balanced.

I've planted most of mine in a half of a 30 gallon plastic barrel with two plants in each "pot". It's about 20" wide so it's pretty stable, but I'll brace it if it becomes very heavy.

Yeah, I don't think you can grow any pitaya outdoors if you get down into the very low 20s or lower. But I think some can probably take even lower than 26F if they have some overhead protection from hard frosts. But in January 2007 we had several days where we stayed below 30F (with one night getting down to almost 20F) and I don't think any of them would survive that without some supplemental heat.

I don't know much more about George other than the fruits I've tasted of it were not very sweet.

I've got way more varieties than I should have but I guess that's because I keep chasing after ones that I've heard great things about from hobbyists around the country and even Spain, etc.

I'm considering building a small greenhouse to get more serious about these things as my plants will be pretty hard to move by the end of this year. My wife is very tolerant of my hobbies, thank God! :)

There's a fairly new bi-colored magenta/white variety being grown in Vietnam and I'd like to find some way to get that too. I do have an import permit so I just need to find a way to get it here, though I don't know anything about the tas

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Ill need to bookmark this post so I can back and look at your instructions once my dragon fruit get larger. I will have to bring them indoors during winter. I saw a picture on one site of some bonsai dragon fruit. The plants were one short stem and still had fruit on it. I live in zone 8a. Its amazing that it got that cold there. I bet it was a major shock to alot of plants and people. If I lived in a tropical climate or had a greenhouse I would love to grow more varieties of dragon fruit. Since you have so many varieties you should build a greenhouse lol. How long have you had your dragon fruit? I like looking at the different dragon fruit on Pine Island Nursery, and I look forward to tasting a dragon fruit.

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Lots of new growth on White Dragon fruit

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I got some cuttings on ebay last fall real late. supposedly there are four different kinds, and a couple of them look a little different from each other. I thought they were goners, they looked bad when I got them (frozen), they didn't grow one little bit through winter, but now they are starting to grow. I'll just have to wait and see what they turn into though. There were supposed to be four kinds, but none of them were marked at all. so it was a pretty worthless purchase for me so far.

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I hope your dragon fruit cuttings grow for you Sandy. Mine have slowed down for some reason.

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It's been 8 hours so I hope it's okay to post some photo's.

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I saw flowers that had bloomed for the past week or two in Fallbrook late on Monday of Paul Thomson's S-8 selection. The fruits are small, but taste reportedly pretty good. They also had a couple of Guatemala (G2) flowers but the H. undatus were a was off.

Sorry I didn't have time to make it down your way, Tony. I was up until after midnight packing Sunday night and left at 4:45am but still didn't have enough time.

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The one with the bud is the S.B.R. It hasn't put on new growth but it has two buds ?

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That's strange. I've heard before how plants required a certain mass before fruiting. Maybe those flower buds were already developed somewhat before the cutting was taken last year. I'm going to check mine now! :)

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If I remember right the buds were already on the cutting

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I'm happy for you Tony! Wow, 2 buds so close together.... and already on the cutting.

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I just looked and one of my cuttings has 3 vegetative shoots and 1 flower bud. There were no signs of any of that a couple of months ago.

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My dragonfruit has several flowers and developing fruit now.

:woohoonaner:

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Santa Barbara Red