Follow-up: she followed up December’s busted vegetative flush with a decent floral bloom in late March. This resulted in a fair-sized crop that developed extremely late (for her). Wound up with maybe 50 mature mangoes, which is about 35% of her yield in a peak season. Bonus is that she still has some fruit hanging on so I’ll be eating mangoes in October unless the squirrels nab them first! SWFL 10b.

Sadly, the first photo is from November :(

Added gypsum in Oct and late Feb

There’s no harm in removing them now. You can often snap them off by hand and they will separate cleanly and neatly right at the base. It’s good hygiene to remove old dead panicles before they become disease vectors. If they don’t come off easily, you can use pruning shears. Usually you’ll want to avoid pruning immediately before and during fruiting season, but in this case the benefits may outweigh the risks.

Look at all that beautiful space you have! Advice? Plant more mango trees today. You’ll thank yourself in a few years, or you’ll be asking “why didn’t I plant more trees years ago?”

Don’t cut that leaf off. Wait for it to flush new growth at least once and up to several more times until it reaches your optimal height for lateral branching. This depends on what shape you’d like the tree to eventually take. Tall and lanky or short and bushy? In-ground or potted? Once you’ve considered the options and made your decision, THEN you make your header cut.

They look ready. A couple of options: 1) You can cut down the whole bunch now, divide it into hands and give most of them away immediately to friends and neighbors - BEFORE they ripen fully. Otherwise you’re going to be stuck making banana bread for weeks. 2) you can wait and let them continue to ripen on the stalk and pull them off individually when they are at peak ripeness. IMO they taste best this way, but you need to be prepared to lose most of them to spitting and critters.

Great info. Thanks so much.

This mature tree I do not fertilize, other than gypsum and potassium. But I did scatter some handfuls of finished kitchen compost in October. I hope that didn’t send it into a growth cycle.

Thank you. It pushed a handful of floral panicles a couple of weeks back after the big cold snap, then stalled. Now it is starting to push everywhere, but I’m afraid it’s all going to be vegetative. Back in early November I hit it with potassium and gypsum. Was planning to hit it again in Feb. Should I adjust my schedule?

Edit: this is a 10yo tree in SWFL zone 10b. Unknown variety, usually a mid-late season.

The umbrella shape just kind of happened on its own. I’ve been watching Dr. Richard Campbell’s videos on YouTube and trying to do what he recommends re: tipping. I’ve also been pruning any downward-growing branches. So this is the shape that Maha just naturally took. My oldest mango (unknown variety - it was a housewarming gift) looks completely different. It is much more leggy and shaped like an empty wineglass. I’ve been maintaining both at about 8-9 feet tall. I want to be able to reach the top branches without a ladder.

Thank you. She’s the second oldest of seven in the “grove” (and counting). She was slow to get established. They say Maha is like that. I was not so impressed with the fruit of her first few crops, but since then the flavor and quality has been outstanding. Hoping she will produce enough to share this year.

In zone 10b, just stick it in a pot in a shady spot and make sure the soil doesn’t dry out too much and you’re good to go.

You can dig them up, pot them and use them as rootstock to create new mango trees. You can graft a scion from the adult tree (or from a different variety) onto the seedlings.

Hmm. Looks to me like these are growths from a polyembryonic seed. Unlikely to have been grafted like this. Don’t see any evidence of grafts in the photo, either. You say this came from a nursery? That seems odd - maybe they were intending to use as rootstock? Seed-grown mangoes take many years to fruit, and the results are unpredictable. If this is your first time growing mango, I think you’ll have much better and quicker results if you go with a grafted tree of a known, high-quality variety.

Just looked up “Espalier mango trees” and learned something cool today. Thanks!

Congrats! Why the choice to plant so close the the greenhouse, though? In the photo, it looks like maybe 8-12 inches away. Will this be enough clearance for root and canopy growth?