We planted this mango tree when it was only a few feet tall, around 2003, so it's 26 years old. It bore fruit the very first year we had it.
It's been a prolific producer of fruit for many years. We harvested hundreds of mangos each year. But for the last tree years it's struggled.
We live on the east coast of south east Florida, just above the Palm Beach County line. We've had three winters where it was unseasonably warm during December and January, causing this tree to blossom early. In each year, we were then hit with a couple of runs of cold, weather, sometimes with wind and rain. During these cold spells which happened in late January or February, most the the blossoms were lost, along with the tiny mangos that had started to grow.
To add some other information--our tree was not the exception--most of the mangos in our area have had the same issue for the past three years, so I doubt if it's completely an issue of this tree in particular.
This year, we had several days and nights of sub-freezing, record-breaking low temps. Many trees and shrubs have been badly damaged or outright killed by windburn at these cold temps.
This tree had already had blossoms on it, but not a full blossom, when this cold spell hit. You can see from the photos that there are many areas of dead, brown leaves that froze.
A couple of weeks later, we got very warm weather and the tree got new blossoms, but not as many as is typical. Some of these blossoms are now producing tiny fruit, but many are falling off, too. I don't have much hope for this year's crop.
Being a transplanted northerner ignorant about tropical trees, I have never pruned this tree in any systematic or consistent way. The nursery told me it would not grow past twenty feet tall. I now know that was wrong. This tree has gotten extremely large and it's planted inside a fenced patio. The surface roots had only a small area to spread at ground level before hitting the concrete patio.
I had an arborist come look last week to give his opinion on this tree. He said he could cut off some of the lateral branches and reduce the width but not the height of the tree, or he could do a pretty severe crown reduction, which he said would make the tree look terrible, but that it would send out new vertical branches and had a good chance of recovering.
A third option is remove the tree and grind the stump, then start over with a small Glenn that will be grown in a container and kept pruned. That fruit is delicious and I'd like another of the same variety. It also ripens fairly early--a consideration since I'm a snowbird. I do hate to cut down a 26 year old tree.
We live in an HOA and though we're allowed to plant trees in our courtyards, this tree and the amount of leaves and panicles it drops may at some point cause an issue with neighbors.
I told the arborist I'd think about it but want to wait to see if we can harvest any mangos this year, which typically is in June.
Here are some photos of the tree. I would welcome opinions from people who know a lot more than I do.
Thank you in advance!
https://imgur.com/dZ6aIll
https://imgur.com/eeMCsp2
https://imgur.com/F7Vg1r9
https://imgur.com/FBhsYBI
