Tropical Fruit Trees 🥭
We’re having some fun this summer. In Southern California, we don’t just have to wait for the exotic fruit to land in our grocery stores and specialty market… we get a little more room to play with growing them at home. Our mild winters, long warm summers, and coastal marine layer suit a wide range of tropical and subtropical fruit trees.
The catch is that not every variety cooperates. Some need humidity we do not have. Some die at the first frost. Some cannot tolerate our hard, alkaline tap water. So we did not order whatever was available. Every tree below was selected because it has a track record in inland and coastal Southern California: it fruits reliably, handles our conditions, and can be kept at a size that fits a real backyard.
📝 A few notes before you dive in:
Cold hardy and frost hardy are different. Cold hardy means the tree shrugs off chilly nights. Frost hardy means it survives ice on the leaves. Several trees below are cold hardy but need frost protection for their first two or three winters, after which they are fine.
The first two winters decide everything. A young tropical that gets protection through its first couple of winters usually becomes a tree you keep for decades. Frost cloth, incandescent string lights, a thick mulch ring, and a south-facing wall will cover most of what you need.
Our water is hard. Most of this list handles it. Four varieties do not, and we have flagged each one clearly.
Come talk to us before you plant. Twenty minutes on siting, drainage, and winter protection is worth more than any amount of internet research. We are happy to go through planting depth, mulch, watering schedule, when to prune, and when to leave the tree alone.
Trees
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: To roughly 30°F once established · Water and soil: Handles our alkaline water. Filtered water not required.
A Bolivian relative of the mangosteen and one of the most underrated trees we carry. Squeeze the thumb-sized orange fruit and the snow-white segments pop out. The flavor is clean and refreshing, sweet-tart with a citrus edge and none of the heaviness of a tropical custard fruit. The tree is slow, upright, and densely evergreen at 12 to 20 ft, handles inland heat well, and asks for very little.
Good fit if: you are inland, want low maintenance, and would rather have a bright fruit than a rich one.
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DescripAvailable in: 7 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: No, protect it · Water and soil: Prefers pH 6.0 to 7.0. Filtered water not required.
The flesh is egg-yolk orange, dense, and smooth to slightly mealy, closer to baked sweet potato than to a juicy fruit. Flavor is sweet and rich with a custard character that works best blended into milkshakes, ice cream, or flan rather than eaten out of hand. Trees run 15 to 25 ft in the ground and hold easily at 10 to 12 ft with glossy year-round foliage.
Good fit if: you cook or blend, and you want something no one else on your block is growing.tion text goes here
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Water and soil: Handles our alkaline water. Filtered water recommended.
The one your neighbors will ask about. Jaboticaba fruits directly on its trunk and main branches, so the whole tree erupts in white flowers and then grape-sized black fruit, potentially several times a year. The flavor is like a concord grape with a deeper, slightly resinous, wine-like note behind a thick skin and jelly-like pulp. It is slow growing and shrubby with peeling cinnamon bark, generally 10 to 15 ft after many years. Excellent as a container plant, a hedge, or a bonsai subject.
Good fit if: you are playing a long game and want an ornamental that happens to fruit spectacularly.
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Available in: 7 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: No, protect it · Water and soil: Prefers pH 6.5 to 7.0. Filtered water not required.
Sweethart is bred for a tiny, shriveled seed, so you get far more fruit per bite than a standard lychee. The flavor is strongly floral, like rose water and muscat grape, with enough acid to keep it from being cloying. Texture is firm, crisp, and translucent. Unpruned it reaches 20 to 30 ft, but lychees grow slowly and take pruning well, so most home growers hold them at 10 to 15 ft.
Good fit if: you want a showpiece evergreen and can give it a wind-sheltered spot with frost cover for the first few winters.
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: Yes, once established · Water and soil: Prefers pH 5.5 to 6.5. Filtered water not required.
The dependable lychee. Mauritius is vigorous and a heavier, more consistent producer than most cultivars, which matters in a climate that occasionally throws an odd spring. Fruit is bright red with sweet, juicy, mildly perfumed flesh, less rose-forward than Sweethart and more grape-like. The seed is full sized. Expect 20 to 30 ft unpruned, 12 to 15 ft maintained.
Good fit if: you want lychee production over novelty, and you can protect it for two or three years before it toughens up.ription text goes here
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: No, protect it · Water and soil: Handles our alkaline water. Filtered water not required.
The fastest return on this list. Red Lady is hermaphroditic, so one plant sets fruit without a partner, and it commonly begins fruiting within a year at only 2 to 3 ft tall. Flesh is deep red-orange, buttery, and sweet, with none of the funk of supermarket papaya. Tops out around 6 to 8 ft. Plan on replanting every 3 or 4 years as production drops. Sharp drainage is essential, since wet winter soil is the usual cause of death.
Good fit if: you want fruit this year and are willing to treat it as a fast crop rather than a permanent tree.
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Partially. Cross-pollination with 'Silas Woods' or hand pollination improves fruit set. · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: Once established · Water and soil: Handles our alkaline water. Filtered water recommended.
Sapodilla tastes like a pear soaked in brown sugar and malt, sweet and caramel-rich with a slightly grainy, sandy-smooth texture. Hasya is a larger-fruited, notably sweet selection with low latex, so harvest is less sticky. Mature trees reach 30 to 40 ft in the tropics but are commonly held at 10 to 15 ft here. They are tough: wind tolerant, salt tolerant, and drought tolerant once rooted in.
Good fit if: you have a windy or coastal site, and ideally room to pair it with Silas Woods.
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Semi self-pollinating. Pairs well with 'Hasya', or hand pollinate. · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: Yes · Water and soil: Handles our alkaline water. Filtered water recommended.
Same brown sugar and malt flavor, smaller fruit, and a genuinely dwarf habit. Silas Woods is known for fruiting young and staying small, often producing in a container at 5 to 6 ft and settling around 8 to 12 ft in the ground. If you only have room for one sapodilla, choose this one. If you have room for two, plant it near Hasya and both will produce better.
Good fit if: space is tight or you want your first sapodilla harvest sooner.
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: No, hand pollination recommended · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: No, protect it · Water and soil: Handles our alkaline water. Filtered water not required.
The most cold-tender tree on this list and the biggest flavor payoff. Strawberry and pineapple over a creamy coconut base with a citrus lift. Texture is soft and lightly fibrous, so it is usually blended into juice, batidos, and ice cream rather than eaten out of hand. The flowers make natural pollination unreliable, so plan on hand-pollinating with a small brush. It takes about five minutes and it is the difference between a few fruit and a real crop. Trees run 15 to 25 ft and hold at 10 to 12.
Good fit if: you have a warm, sheltered microclimate and do not mind a five-minute chore during bloom.
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: No, protect it · Water and soil: Handles our alkaline water. Filtered water helps but is not required.
This is not the sour tamarind used in cooking. Sweet Thai selections are eaten straight from the pod: sticky, chewy, date-like pulp with a caramel and brown sugar flavor and only a hint of tang. The tree is slow and long-lived with fine feathery foliage that folds up at night. It can eventually reach 40 to 60 ft but responds well to pruning and is commonly held at 12 to 15 ft. Very drought tolerant once established.
Good fit if: you want a low-water tree with real ornamental value and you are patient.
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: No, protect it · Water and soil: Prefers pH 6.0 to 7.0. Filtered water helps but is not required.
A bell-shaped crimson fruit that crunches like a Fuji apple and tastes like a lightly sweetened pear with a rose note. It is roughly 90 percent water and extremely refreshing on a hot day. Nearly seedless and eaten skin and all. The tree grows fast, can flower several times a year, and reaches 15 to 25 ft naturally while staying happy at 10 to 12 ft.
Good fit if: you want fruit quickly, and you like a tree that also looks good in bloom.
Trees
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: Yes · Water and soil: Handles our alkaline water. Filtered water not required.
Longan is lychee's earthier relative. Tan, thin-shelled fruit with translucent flesh that is sweet and musky-honeyed with a caramel finish, less floral than lychee and slightly chewier. Kohala is the Hawaiian selection known for bearing early and consistently, which is why we stock it. 25 to 40 ft if left alone, 12 to 15 ft with pruning.
Good fit if: you want a productive, hardier alternative to lychee.
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: Yes · Water and soil: Handles our alkaline water. Filtered water not required.
The connoisseur's longan. A Thai selection with a pinkish blush to the flesh, a notably small seed, and eating quality widely rated above standard longans: crisp, very sweet, and clean, with the musky note dialed back toward honey and pear. Typically 20 to 30 ft, held at 12 to 15.
Good fit if: you already like longan and want the better one.
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: To roughly 30°F once established · Water and soil: Handles our alkaline water. Filtered water not required.
Known as the chocolate pudding fruit, which describes the texture better than the flavor. Fully ripe, and it must be fully ripe, wrinkled and soft, the flesh is glossy dark brown, silky, and thick as mousse with a mild sweetness like a very soft persimmon. Mash it with vanilla and lime and serve it as dessert. It is a persimmon relative, which is why it is tougher and more cold-tolerant than most tropicals. 30 to 40 ft naturally, easily maintained at 12 to 15.
Good fit if: you want a genuinely low-risk tropical and you like dessert.
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: No, our most tender offering · Frost hardy: No · Water and soil: Prefers pH around 6.0. Filtered water recommended.
The cashew apple is the swollen red-yellow stem, and it is juicy and sweet with an astringent, tropical edge. It juices well. The nut hangs from the bottom end. Please note that the raw shell contains a caustic oil related to poison ivy and must be roasted outdoors with care, so this is not a shell-and-snack fruit. Trees are low and spreading at 20 to 30 ft.
Good fit if: you have a frost-free pocket or a container you can move, and you want a real conversation piece. Talk to us about placement before you buy this one.
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Available in: 3 gal · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: Yes, once established · Water and soil: Prefers pH 6.5 to 7.0. Filtered water not required.
Grown for its leaves, not its fruit. Crush one and you get clove, allspice, cinnamon, and pepper. This is West Indian bay leaf, a staple of Caribbean cooking and the original source of bay rum cologne. The tree is a dense, glossy evergreen at 15 to 25 ft that takes shearing well.
Good fit if: you need a privacy screen or hedge and would rather it be useful than decorative.
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: Yes, once established · Water and soil: Prefers pH 5.5 to 6.0. Filtered water not required.
A small dark purple fruit that tastes like a sweet cherry with a subtle spicy background note. Flesh is soft and juicy with a small seed. The tree is slow, dense, and glossy with a compact upright form, reaching 15 to 25 ft over a long time. It is one of the most ornamental plants in this batch even before it fruits, and it works as a patio tree, hedge, or container specimen.
Good fit if: you want a tree that earns its spot on looks alone and pays you in fruit later.
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Keep above 50°F · Frost hardy: No, protect it · Water and soil: Needs acidic soil at pH 5.5 to 6.0 and filtered or rainwater. This one truly does not tolerate our tap water.
The berry is only mildly sweet on its own, but it coats your tongue with a protein that makes sour foods taste sweet for the next 30 to 60 minutes. Lemons taste like lemonade. Vinegar tastes like sweet wine. It is the single most entertaining thing you can hand a guest. The plant is a slow shrub reaching 5 to 10 ft over many years, and it is particular: acidic soil, no lime, no hard water, dappled light. We recommend growing it in a container with an acidic mix so you control every variable.
Good fit if: you are willing to manage soil and water carefully. Ask us for our container mix recipe.
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Available in: 3 gal · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: No, protect it · Water and soil: Needs acidic soil at pH 5.0 to 5.5 and filtered or rainwater.
Real tea, in the large-leaf Assamica form used for robust black teas. The brewed leaf is malty and full-bodied. Left alone it becomes a small tree of 15 to 30 ft, but it is traditionally kept pruned to a waist-high plucking table at 3 to 4 ft, which pushes new growth and makes harvest easy. Glossy foliage and fragrant white camellia flowers in the off-season. Treat it like an azalea: acidic mix, filtered water, no lime.
Good fit if: you drink tea daily and like a plant you interact with regularly.
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'Sri Kembangan' Star Fruit
Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: Yes, once established · Water and soil: Handles our alkaline water. Filtered water not required.
One of the best sweet-type star fruits. Large, deep golden, heavily ribbed fruit that is crisp and very juicy, with a mild flavor between grape, apple, and pear. It is low in oxalic acid, so it lacks the harsh sourness of cheap star fruit. The waxy skin is edible. The tree has delicate drooping foliage and lavender flowers, reaches 20 to 30 ft, prunes easily to 10 or 12, and can produce more than one crop a year here.
Good fit if: you want heavy production, easy harvest, and fruit that needs no preparation.
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: Yes · Water and soil: Handles our alkaline water. Filtered water not required.
The largest tree-borne fruit in the world. Honey Gold is an Australian selection chosen for firm, crisp, deep golden bulbs, sweet flavor, and low latex, which makes it far less messy to break down. The taste is hard to pin: banana, mango, pineapple, and a note most people compare to juicy fruit gum. Unripe jakfruit is the well-known meat substitute. Trees reach 30 to 50 ft in the tropics but respond well to hard pruning, and 10 to 15 ft keeps fruit within reach, which matters when one can weigh 20 pounds.
Good fit if: you have space, you share with neighbors, and you are prepared to prune assertively.
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: No, protect it · Water and soil: Needs acidic soil at pH 5.5 to 6.0 and filtered or rainwater.
You can grow your own coffee here. The ripe cherries are sweet and fruity fresh, and the two seeds inside each are the beans. Coffee is a shade-loving understory shrub with glossy dark leaves and fragrant jasmine-scented flowers, and it prefers dappled light over full sun, which makes it a strong patio, north-side, or bright-indoor plant. Naturally 6 to 15 ft, commonly kept at 4 to 6. A mature plant yields enough for a modest amount of home-roasted coffee per year.
Good fit if: you have a shady spot you have written off, or you want to try home roasting.
Mangos
(Rootstock for all varieties is turpentine)-
Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: Yes · Water and soil: Handles our alkaline water. Filtered water helps but is not required.
Start here if you have never grown a mango. Glenn is disease resistant, consistent, and one of the better performers in cooler Southern California microclimates. Fruit runs about a pound with sweet, mild, peachy flesh, no fiber. Naturally moderate and easy to hold at 10 to 15 ft.
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: Yes · Water and soil: Handles our alkaline water. Filtered water helps but is not required.
A cross of two classic Indian varieties, deep saffron-orange inside, completely fiberless, with an intense flavor of honey, citrus, cantaloupe, and spice. Pick it firm and ripen it on the counter for about a week. The growth habit is compact and dense, which makes it one of the more container-friendly mangoes, and 10 to 15 ft is realistic.
Good fit if: flavor is your priority and you are willing to learn the ripening window.
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: Once established · Water and soil: Handles our alkaline water. Filtered water helps but is not required.
A Burmese variety with a devoted following. Fruit is smallish and elongated, very sweet, silky, fiberless, and lightly floral. Its real advantage is that it tends to flower and fruit young and heavily, often while still a modest tree. Stays small at roughly 10 to 12 ft.
Good fit if: you have limited space and want fruit sooner rather than later.
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: Once established · Water and soil: Handles our alkaline water. Filtered water helps but is not required.
Named for its saffron-colored flesh and called the queen of mangoes in India. Rich and aromatic with apricot and saffron notes and a soft, fiberless texture. This is the variety behind good mango pulp and lassi. It is a vigorous grower, so plan on annual pruning to keep it in the 12 to 15 ft range.
Good fit if: you want fruit for pulp, smoothies, and desserts, and you have room for a bigger tree.
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: No, protect it · Water and soil: Handles our alkaline water. Filtered water helps but is not required.
The name is accurate. Creamy, fiberless flesh with a bright citrus-orange top note over classic sweet mango. A Florida selection with a naturally small, tidy habit that often stays in the 8 to 12 ft range.
Good fit if: you have a small yard or want a mango you can keep in a large pot.
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: Once established · Water and soil: Handles our alkaline water. Filtered water helps but is not required.
The slender, golden, kidney-shaped classic, and one of the most reliable mango types in Southern California. It sets fruit in cooler, drier conditions where fussier varieties fail. Flavor is sweet-tart with a honeyed finish and the flesh is buttery and fiberless. Typically 15 to 20 ft, pruned to 10 or 12.
Good fit if: you want the highest odds of an actual crop in a marginal spot.
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: Once established · Water and soil: Handles our alkaline water. Filtered water helps but is not required.
Deep crimson skin over pale orange flesh, with a mild, clean, sweet flavor and no fiber. Irwin is a naturally dwarf, compact grower, generally 8 to 12 ft, and one of the best mangoes for permanent container culture.
Good fit if: you are growing on a patio, a deck, or in a pot you may need to move for winter.
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Available in: 3 gal · Self-fruiting: Yes · Cold hardy: Yes · Frost hardy: Once established · Water and soil: Handles our alkaline water. Filtered water helps but is not required.
The famous Thai dessert mango: long, slender, thin-skinned, honeyed and floral with coconut undertones and no fiber. It is also the preferred variety for eating green, firm and tart with chili salt. Upright habit, 10 to 15 ft with pruning, and it fruits young.
Good fit if: you want two uses from one tree, green and ripe.
If You Would Rather Stay Temperate…
Tropicals get the attention, but we have a full range of fruit trees. We also carry apples, pears, peaches, plums, nectarines, mulberries, figs, and more, including low-chill varieties selected for Southern California's mild winters. That last detail is the one most people get wrong when they order online, then wonder why their apple tree never blooms.
Whether this is your first tree or the last gap in a full backyard orchard, come by and talk to us. Bring photos of your yard, a rough idea of your sun exposure, and your questions about winter protection. We would rather help you get it right the first time than sell you a tree that struggles.