Day 2, Southern Blush, Carrie, Graham & Pickering.

Its day 2, and here are pictures of my new closet mangoes with the ultrasonic humidifier at full blast.

The humidifier has a very dilute mixture of KLN, Dyna-gro fertilizer and SM-90. At night, the whole system shuts off; giving the mangoes a chance at drying out.

'Tebow' is actually 'Young'

Well, I read on GarenWeb forums and this pdf article and this pdf article, that the 'Tebow' Mango was in fact named 'Young' (named after Dr. T. W. Young) but for many years the tree was simply labelled "Edward x Kent - no.14." It seems that Pine Island nursery did not know that it was already named so they called it Tebow.

Perhaps, I should start calling my 'Tebow' mangoes, 'Young' mangoes.

Pickering, Carrie, Graham & Southern Blush are here.

I was impressed again at how fast USPS got these to me. 3 days.

This is how TopTropicals.com packages the mango trees.

Carrie looks good.

I was so surprised at how horrible Southern Blush looked. No wonder it was on sale. It looked diseased and it had so few leaves. I can't believe they would send anyone such a disappointing specimen!?

Pickering looked good. Here pictured already repotted.

Graham looked okay but there was some damage in its mid-section. Not a plant I would buy if I had a choice. I noticed lower branching that were cut off. Too bad.

I only had pots for Pickering and Graham. Carrie and Southern Blush will have to wait till my local hydroponic store gets the 5 gallon Gro Pots for me; which they say will probably be by Friday.
Man, I'm really bummed out by the crappy looking Southern Blush. Once Graham settles in, I'm gonna try pruning it down past the damaged part. If Southern Blush lives, its gonna get severely pruned in the hopes of reshaping it.

Carrie, Graham, Pickering & Southern Blush coming...

Well I got an email Monday that my next batch of mango tree were shipped. Wednesday, today, it should arrive according to the USPS tracking. I haven't gotten my two additional Gro Pots yet, so I'll probably have to leave two of the four trees in their platic bag.

Day 10, Moved my babies to work

In order from left to right: Glenn, Julie, Lancetilla & Valencia Pride.

 Moving my trees was a little traumatic; knocked a bunch of leaves off trying to fit them into my car. I'm definitely going to prune them down once I feel they are okay in their new environment. Valencia Pride is drying up much faster than the other three but she still has good leaves. I am hoping they're dropping some leaves due to climate change from shipping rather than root stress.

 In order from left to right: Manila, Tebow (bent), Tebow (straight) & Julie #1.

They look fine, the potting medium was a bit dry, so I gave them water with a little fish fertilizer.

 Tebow (bent) is showing budding around the top.

Tebow (straight) is budding at one site. I hope it doesn't grow lop-sided.

Closet mangoes, day 9.

Valencia Pride dropped some of her leaves but still looking better than the Julie & Alphonso I had earlier, in the same number of days. I did notice that I had planted the guys too deeply but I don't want to repot any of them, so I dug around the trunk and filled in the space with diatomaceous rock. I read online that this was done as a remedy for trees planted too deeply (though they use pea-gravel). Getting oxygen is key, so the fabric pots ought to help with this.

I've discontinued the humidifier but continue to mist after each drying.
I also got to test the water pooling out at the bottom with a hand-held water tester and the Ph was about 7.49. A bit high but within range. Next watering I will add a tiny bit of citric acid.

 Valencia Pride

 Lancetilla

Glenn (Julie on right)

Julie

Merry Mango Tree!

Merry Mango Trees.. new hygrometer & temperature device (in Julie's pot).

Just the LED lights on.

This is what my trees look like under just the purple lights of my LEDs.

Closet mangoes, day 6.

Well, to my surprise, I found that my timer had malfunctioned and the lights were on for 20 hours. the heat in my closet dried out the moisture at the bottom of the wooden box (the humidifier was dried out) and some of Julie's leaves crinkled up. I turned off the lights to give the mangoes their night and sprayed them down and by 6pm I turned back on the lights and let the humidifier do its magic. I'm gonna wean them off the humidifier soon.

Koo-Koo for mango trees!

Well, I got an email catalog-mailer from Toptropicals.com that promoted a 15% discount on orders (on top of their 5% off for orders over $100; between Dec 22-25). So I felt this was an omen to buy more trees.
So to add to my collection will be Carrie (second attempt), Graham (a Julie seedling), Pickering (I was happy Toptropicals had it) and Southern Blush (a mango with little available info but its a pretty red fruit). The "savings" nearly amounted to a free tree. Cool. This will bring my total of current mango trees to twelve AND I promised myself to not buy anymore (unless one dies ;-) ).

Fortunately I went to my local Hydroponic store and ordered two more 5 gallon Gro Pots. I also brought home the 2 pots with my dead Alphonso and Julie and pulled them out. Amazingly, the root-stock for Alphonso was still alive and from what I can see about to sprout new roots. sigh.

If I time all this correctly, By the time the new mangoes arrive, the ones in the closet will be ready to be moved to work. Freeing up the closet for the incoming.

The mangoes I got are listed here:

http://toptropicals.com/cgi-bin/store/store.cgi?group=mango

http://toptropicals.com/cgi-bin/store/store.cgi?script_param=Z3JvdXA9bWFuZ28=&FirstItem=25&old=mango&NumItems=25

I think in one of my past-lives, I was a wanna-be farmer.

Nam-Myho-Renge-Kyo, Nam-Myho-Renge-Kyo, Nam-Myho-Renge-Kyo, Nam-Myho-Renge-Kyo, Nam-Myho-Renge-Kyo, Nam-Myho-Renge-Kyo, Nam-Myho-Renge-Kyo!!!

Closet mangoes five days later.

The leaves are still juicy. Hurray.

Closet Mangoes three days later.

Well its been three days now and the leaves are still leathery and green. Hurray. If after a week its still healthy, I think I can assume the roots are recovering. I wish I had magic-vision to see if the roots are actually growing. The humidifier, KLN, SM-90 and Exel fungicide are great.
Oh, I put Ranch99 grocery bags over the Gro Pots because I didn't want the water to seep out of the bottoms and pool in the wooden box (when I watered it). Its already wet in there and I didn't want to make it worst.

Closet Mangoes, day 1

In order: Valencia Pride, Lancetilla, Glenn & Julie.

So far, the humidifier and lights are keeping the leaves from drying out. Will keep an eye on it over the next week. I've been giving a lot of KLN in the hopes of getting the roots overcoming their transplant shock.

Close-ups in the mango closet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bionaire Humdifier.

Julie, Glenn, Lancetilla and Valencia Pride

It took five days for my new trees to arrive. I guess the holiday season slowed delivery down?

I already potted my fourth Julie (in background) but this is a picture of how my new mangoes arrived. they looked very good. I decided to bare-root my plants before putting them into their new Gro Pots.

 

Julie and close-up of her roots.

 

Glenn and his roots.

 

Valencia Pride and her roots. Her leaves (and branches) were covered with some sort of rust like stuff? I had to use a kitchen sponge to get most of it off. Fortunately the weather (though wet) was warm enough for me to do all this outside in my backyard.

 

Lancetilla and his roots.

Group photo of the new gang. I gave them a heavy spray down of Exel Fungicide.

Here are my new mangoes in my grow closet. I got a cool mist humidifier (ultra-sonic) to help keep the leaves moist. Since the roots were bare-rooted I gave each of the mangoes a watering of KLN, Bioweed, sugar, CaMg+, Dyna-gro and vitamin B1. I also put in the humidifier KLN and SM-90 (anti-fungal). If things still get dry, I made a fresh batch of foliar spray using KLN, Bioweed, Protekt and dyna-gro.

Mixed up a batch of soilless medium and more...

After work, I headed for my local hydroponics store and picked up another bag of Roots Organics and 4 more 12 inch green saucers. I also found out that they sell reflective sheets (10' wide) for $1.30 per foot. Got to go back for some.

 Here is some Roots Organics mixed with Dyna-Rok and Hydroton.

 Gro Pots partly filled with it.

 I rearranged the LED lights (the same ones I used for my orchid grow) so that they are all in a row and I moved the tube fluorescent bulbs so that it was in front and back of the LEDs. I went to Home Depot and picked up a 2700 K compact fluorescent bulb and two clamp-lights. I already had a 6500K bulb from Amazon.com. Both bulbs are 42 watt (about 150 watt equivalent).

Its bright. I'm gonna get a humidifier in the hopes that when I get my new mangoes, I can use it to help with them adapting from the transportation.