Perennials to enjoy in zone 9

@Richard just made the mistake of asking me in this thread what kind of things I would grow if I were in zone 9b, like he is.

Muah ha ha ha ha! (Rubs hands together gleefully.) I’m in zone 7b, and there are LOADS of things I would plant here if I thought I could get away with it! (In fact, most of the things on the zone 8 list and many of the things on the zone 9 list, I’m planning to try in a greenhouse.)

Here’s a very incomplete and totally subjective list!

Zone 8 perennials:
Feijoa
Strawberry tree, a.k.a. Jamaican cherry (Muntingia calabura)
Yacon
Yucca aloifolia (edible fruit that tastes like a cross between blueberries and molasses)
Texas persimmon
Longan
Loquat

Zone 9 perennials:
Ice cream bean
Saigon cinnamon (apparently the fruit can be eaten, too!)
Ugniberry / Chilean guava (Ugni molinae)
Miracle fruit
Mashua
African potato mint
Cherimoya
Yumberry (Myrica rubra)
Roselle hibiscus
Jojoba
Manuka (mainly if I had bees, so I could harvest my own manuka honey)
Carob

Zone 10 perennials: (in case you have nice microclimates to put them in, or are willing to wrap blankets around them in winter for extra cold protection)
Barbados cherry
Sin Espinas dragonfruit (it’s the only thornless dragonfruit variety)
Black sapote
White sapote
Rose apple (and other syzigiums, like lilly pilly)
Eggfruit
Olosapo
Epiphyllium (it’s a thornless cactus that grows edible fruits that taste like a cross between dragonfruit and passionfruit, with gorgeous flowers)
Sapodilla
Custard apple
Serendipity berry (Dioscoreophyllum cumminsii)
Yeheb (Cordeauxia edulis)
Peanut butter plant
Starfruit

And here’s a list of banana varieties, specifically:
Dwarf Orinoco banana (zone 7a – I plan to get one eventually)
Dwarf Namwah banana (zone 7b – I have one :smiley:)
Ice Cream / Blue Java banana (zone 8)
Misi Luki / Mysore / Pisang Ceylon / Pisang Keling banana (zone 8)
Raja Puri banana (zone 8)
Thousand Fingers banana (zone 8)
Ae Ae banana (zone 8)
Cavendish banana (zone 10 – this is the cultivar sold in grocery stores)
Double Mahoi banana (zone 10)
Gros Michel banana (zone 11 – this is the cultivar that USED to be sold in grocery stores, and is supposed to have tasted better, and is now commercially extinct)

There are loads of banana varieties that are hardy to zones 9 and 10 that you can look into. The three I listed are the only ones I know off the top of my head. I haven’t researched those as much because I’m trying to find ones that can grow for me. :wink:

I bet a lot of other people could chime in with things they’d love to grow if they lived in zone 9! I imagine avocados and mangos would be top of the list.

One project you might try is to plant seeds of the least hardy perennials in less and less favorable microclimates, and/or at the “wrong” time of year, and see what survives. Then you could send seeds (or seedlings) to other people near you who live in slightly colder zones, and see if those plants will grow for them.

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Very thanks, this is captivating.

So many trees that I am not familiar with. I need to do some research. I think from those recommendations I only got a few.

I will start with the compilation of the trees that have already got established or I got seeds for planting.

A couple of loquat trees, very typical from here, very old ones with probably old genetics. I sowed some seeds but did not sprout yet. Half of the fruits got fungus so I just saved from the healthier fruit. The window for recollection was very small, the fruits were spoiled in one week.

There are ten orange trees, I need to save the seeds, I always forget. Usually they are grafted but I will take my chances.
Same with two lemon trees. I got some ripe lemons just this past weekend. I will try to save seeds. Got some branches with some type of disease,

Got three opuntia ficus-indica, very big and tall. Four metres tall and maybe ten wide. Local wisdom suggests that some people believe fruits can be constipating. Perhaps it could be improved with better preparation. Fruits feature very small and numerous thorns that embed themselves in the skin with ease.

Three apple trees, young ones, I save some seeds from multiple apples. Planted fifty seeds. Four seedlings reach 20 centimetres. Drought arrived and only got one remaining. I need to plant more, but the apples were small, only one viable seed from each apple.

Two pears trees, young and small fruit. Similar to apple’s trees.

Fig trees, three very old and dry, I think they dried last year. Got some cutting earlier this year with no luck. Also got one younger one. I will try to plant more. Also got a late fruiting one, that makes fruit in october.

Two quercus ilex with very spiked leaves. One with sour acorn and one sweet. Plenty of seeds to plant. Very far away from each other, seeds are probably inbreed. Got four seedlings from local forestry people.

Ceratonia siliqua, pretty common here. I try to get seeds from multiple ones and sow them, not luck yet. Got some that did not set fruit, I need to chop them up or graft them. Some people make flour out of the pods.

Eight olive trees. Just now the olives are ready to pick.

Six avocado trees. Just planted.

Various almond trees, some old and dry, some newer ones transplanted last year.

Got some more trees but some of them I do not know the name of.

If I were you, I would graft the carob trees that don’t make fruit. And leave a few branches on each tree ungrafted. Carob comes in both male and female trees, so if you want the fruit, you’ll need some pollen. Happily, you can get pollen and fruit on the same tree thanks to the magic of grafting. :wink:

Actually, now that I think about it, grafting all the lower branches and leaving the upper branches alone would be smart. If it’s a branch that’s too high to be worth the bother of harvesting fruit from, it’s a branch that is perfect to leave as a pollen donor.

Oh, that had not crossed my mind. I got some options. Two of them are super big, so always the top branches are forgotten.
So cutting some branches and grafting to the other ones… I think in another plot there are a old one carob, getting more genetic diversity there.

Maybe I can graft the almond trees to apricot…



Two carob trees.
First one is a very big one, It was pruned heavelly last year.
The second one is a younger one.

Maybe both need to be grafted, need to check it.

I think I gonna stole this thread to put photos of the trees.

Opuntia ficus-indica tree cactus. I always think about crosspollination with somthing else. Is super hardy, grow super big, no water required and makes a lot of fruit.

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That is such a cool-looking plant! It looks like it may be a thornless variety, too. How does the fruit taste? I’ve never tried yellow prickly pear fruit, only pink, and it’s great stuff. I’m guessing the yellow fruit is also good.

If I were you, I’d save seeds from those fruits and put them in the Serendipity Seed Swap EU box! I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more people in Europe who’d enjoy growing it.

Here are the fruits. I wish they were thornless but no, they have very small thorns, like 40 for every node, they sink to the skin and are super hard to remove, it hurts for days. We got a special tool to collect the fruit. I will not take my chances.

Local wisdom suggests that some people believe fruits can be constipating, so do not stuff yourself, need to do more research on them. I also read that the steam is edible too. Inside the fruit is full of seeds. The flavor is like a tropical fruit, very specific flavor, difficult to define. The fruits can be eaten yellow or orange/red. When the skin comes off like butter they are ready to eat. You need a knife or a tool to remove the skin, for thorn safety.

I’ve read that one popular way to eat prickly pear fruit is to cut it in half lengthwise and scoop out the pulp, leaving both sides of the prickly skin upside down on the plate. That makes it easy to eat safely. Might be worth a try!