Loquat - Eriobotrya japonica

[@brighteng7938]

loquat tree is quite new for me but i see it is really very beautiful to decorated the park

[@ddgardner5671]

We grew a loquat in our back yard many years ago. My brother-in-law grew it from seed and gave it to us as a ~10" tall sapling. It grew pretty fast into a 10 foot or so tall tree, and made a lot of fruit. It died after some kind of borer got to it. There's a hybrid between loquat and Indian hawthorn named Eriobotrya x "Coppertone".

[@donnahageman6289]

OUR neighbors behind us in Florida had one and they called it Japanese plum. They are delicious.

[@ramgiberson7180]

Beautiful plant. Happy holidays 😅😅🌻 🌻 🌻 .

[@passepartoot]

My loquat set fruit last spring here in zone 8 Chesapeake, VA. Very tasty. It’s a unique tree that looks great all year long. The only drawback is the constant, year-round shedding of those large, stiff leaves that smother nearby plants. . Not a problem for me; I just blow them onto the lawn for the mower to eat.

[@timmillan6701]

Had a big loquat ( 15/18ft ) in a very protected SE corner in Poquoson for many years- it would have a few fruits about half of the years, but squirrels got them before I did EDIT: Just about 100% of loquats were killed to the ground in 1985 - even in VAB. Mine was planted after that

[@cathierose2009]

Saw a huge fruiting loquat tree in Portugal last February.

[@tonyg5597]

My grandparents had a loquat tree and I remember as a child eating the fruit every year....fruit is nice, but has about 5 big brown seeds

[@michaeloconnor8315]

Hi Jim Mike zone 8a/7B from north Alabama outside Huntsville we had a loquat in the Morgan city area in front of a shopping center it took the bad cold at times but a couple years back a windstorm broke it never came back but hard to find here

[@BryanRezendez]

I'm up here in Oregon. My local fruit tree nursery offers seedlings but no named varieties. I've heard stories of a very large loquat that produces huge crops up in Seattle, Washington.

[@timmillan6701]

There’s more than one that I have seen, but the heaviest fruiting tree is on 12th Street up on Capitol Hill in Seattle- hundreds of fruits most years.

[@BryanRezendez]

@timmillan6701 that's the one I've heard of! I remember capital hill in the description of the tree.

[@timmillan6701]

@@BryanRezendez I live about 50 miles from Seattle, but I go there fairly often. I’m going to get a picture of that tree in fruit this year if possible. Maybe some fruit, and if I am lucky, maybe some cuttings- with permission of course

[@jennifergreene8891]

What a beautiful tree! Can it do well in (my zone 9b Texas Gulf Coast) high humidity? Thank you for sharing Jim. 😊

[@Theisaiahtibbs]

The issue would be the salt which I do not know about. But I grow them really well here in Austin and we usually get fruit.

[@jennifergreene8891]

@Theisaiahtibbs thank you. I never think of the salt too.

[@ddgardner5671]

Absolutely. I'm on the Texas coast too, 10 blocks from the Gulf. They have no problem with salt air and high humidity. As I posted above, mine was killed by borers, but that can happen anywhere.

[@jennifergreene8891]

@@ddgardner5671 Thank you. Is borers common in this tree?

[@ddgardner5671]

@@jennifergreene8891I can't say with any certainty, but it's probably safe to assume that they're no more or less susceptible to being attacked by borers than other stone fruit trees like peach, plum, etc.

[@jamesbarron1202]

My question is, what loquat cultivar is the most dependable producer in zone 8a? I’d think the earliest flowering variety would probably have the best chance.

[@douellette7960]

Don't think there's one. All of them I've seen bloom in fall, mature fruit over winter months and then ripen in early spring. I've had them survive 10F without any damage but their developing fruit destroyed by mid-20s. Maybe would fruit if was a very mild winter in 8a or was in a protected area like in a courtyard

[@Theisaiahtibbs]

Agree. I'm 9A Austin and we usually have fruit but Dallas doesn't hardly ever.

[@timmillan6701]

Interestingly, there are some fruiting loquats in Seattle. I know of one that has set hundreds of fruits many years that I have seen. I do not know the variety ( but I am on a mission to find out) The real mystery is that it is always has ripe fruit in Aug/Sept. This tells me that it probably blooms in March or April- much later than usual and sparing the fruit from winter cold. It definitely can get to 27f at its location. I am in the process of trying to find a variety that fruits very late in my climate. I have 15 grafted trees in 20gal containers that I move in the shop when temperatures are forecast below 24. None have started blooming yet this year, but they will. The only variety to set fruit this last year was Premier. I got about a dozen. There are a few loquats around as landscape plants, but only the protected trees in the city seem to produce quantities of fruit dependably

[@jamesbarron1202]

I wonder if that oddball loquat is a different species altogether. I’d be trying to get some scions off of it for sure and graft onto some of your trees. I’d grow out some seedlings and graft those later also. You might have found a spectacular one of a kind specimen and it needs to be propagated and sold in nurseries. The owner might make some money from it if it’s not a named cultivar.

[@Theisaiahtibbs]

@@timmillan6701 yes all bets are off in the Pacific Northwest, you can grow anything there!

[@MickF04]

Late fall & winter blooming with fragrance. Not sure I've run across that combination very often. I grew up near farmland and Zone 9a-10a, so when I think of Loquat, I'm thinking about the fruit and not the flowering and fragrance.

[@mlockette8084]

I had five10 ft tall beautiful loquats that I grew from cuttings. One had leaves that turned black and dropped off and the tree soon died. The rest followed one by one. They were all dead in short order. I have since discovered that they had fire blight. I am looking for a resistant variety if anyone knows of one for zone 8b. My city has lost many loquats.

[@NoWeedsInMyGarden]

NCSU extension bulletin says it has moderate deer resistance? Any others have experience?

[@timmillan6701]

They haven’t touched mine yet -15 trees for the last 8 years