Plant Daddy

Monday, December 10, 2007

Loquats are doing it.............

The loquats have been flowering since September but were setting not fruit. Now that it is cooler the little fruits are coming. Pollinators are everywhere including bubble bees, honey bees, moths, flies, ants and hornets. The flowers are very fragant now whereas they were not when the weather was hot. My astute guess is that the failure to set fruit earlier was related to the high temperatures.
Also the small trees (3 feet tall from cuttings) are setting a lot of fruit - they are located next to a different cultivar and are getting the benefit of cross pollination. All of the other trees are clones from one superior original tree.
Barring a hard freeze it looks like a bumper crop. Mosiac Mom and I love our loquats......