Feykhoa fruit - growing an exotic plant at home

The fruit of feijoa became widely known relatively recently. He was discovered in the forests of South America by the German botanist Friedrich Sello in the middle of the 19th century. For the first time in Europe, the plant was brought in 1890, first in the botanical gardens of Yalta and Sukhumi, later - in California and Italy. From Italy feijoa spread throughout the Mediterranean and further in Southeast Asia. Nowadays this plant is cultivated in the Crimea, Latin America, Australia, Turkmenistan, Southeast Asia, Italy, New Zealand.

Feijoa - description

The plant belongs to the Myrtov family. There are not many species in it, and among them the only one grown is just feijoa. Few people know what feijoa looks like, being familiar only with its fruits. The plant itself is an evergreen tree-like shrub. It can grow up to 4 meters in height. A densely branched root system is located in the upper soil layer. Feijoa is a moisture-loving plant. Its leaves are hard, pubescent, attached to the branches with short petioles. The leaves are green on top and silver on the bottom. The trunk is covered with a green-brown rough bark.

Directly the fruit of feijoa is a fragrant, soft, fleshy, juicy berry that tastes like kiwi, pineapple and strawberry at the same time. This combination of tastes can conquer from the first bite. The shape of the fetus can range from spherical to oval. Its size is small - only 2-5 cm, weight - up to 60 g. In the flesh of the fruit there are seeds, and outside it is protected by a bumpy skin from yellow-green to dark-green hue.

How does feijoa grow?

Feijoa grows wherever it is warm. Its homeland is subtropics, in this climate it feels very good. As for the tropics, the plant tolerates this zone poorly. Many, impressed by the benefits of berries and the decorative view of the bush, are trying to grow a feijoa in the home. I must say, with certain knowledge about care and with a suitable climate (or its artificial creation), in many cases it succeeds very successfully.

Flowering feijoa

Blossoms the feijoa shrub in May-June with axial four-membered flowers, both solitary and inflorescences. Inflorescences bisexual, in them there is a set of stamens (50-80 pieces). Pollination is due to insects. The tree of feijoa during the flowering period looks very elegant. Mass flowering lasts three weeks, after which the petals and most ovaries fall. Of the entire mass of flowering, the useful ovary occupies only 17-18%.

When is feijoa ripe?

Delicious and rich in iodine and vitamin C, the feijoa fruit ripens from mid-October to late November. Ripe fruits fall from the branches, and they are collected from the ground. For sale, the harvest of berries is carried out a little earlier. While the berry is not ripe, it is harvested from branches. So she better tolerates transportation. Maturation of the first feijoa fruit in the room conditions will occur 6 years after planting the seeds. If you planted cuttings or root shoots, the first harvest will please you after three years.

Types of feijoa

Before starting to grow feijoa as a home plant, let's learn about its main types:

  1. André. A variety of feijoa, coming from Brazil. Its fruits are medium-sized, oblong or round, their surface rough, light green in color. The flesh is dense, the seeds are small. The taste is very rich and full. The plant is self-fertile, always yields many fruits.
  2. "Besson." The native land of this variety is Uruguay. Fruits are small or medium, oval in shape, with a burgundy blush. The skin of the fruit is thin, the flesh is not very thick, fine-grained, juicy, fragrant, with a lot of seeds.
  3. Coolidge. Grown mainly in California. Fruits are either oblong or pear-shaped, of medium size. The skin is slightly corrugated. The aroma of the fruit is indeterminate. The plant is self-fertile, strong and erect.
  4. "Superba". The fruits of this feijoa variety are round or slightly oval in shape, medium smoothness, good taste. Not less than 33% self-fertile. The bush is sprawling, of medium strength.
  5. Choiceana. Fruits are round or a little oval, smooth, medium in size, pleasant to taste. The bush is medium strength, the plant is 42% self-fertile.

How to raise feijoa at home?

Since the fruit of the feijoa is from Brazil, it is necessary to observe two main conditions for its cultivation - heat and humidity. The plant is bred not only for fruits, but also as an ornamental plant - its flowering is very beautiful, its flowers are complex, with a lot of red stamens on the background of snow-white petals and burgundy stipules. If you are able to provide subtropical conditions for feijoa, growing it will become for you a real hobby.

Feijoa plant - soil

Optimal soil for this plant is a mixture of peat , sand, humus, turf and deciduous land in equal proportions. In general, the plant is not particularly demanding for the soil, so the usual floral substrate will do. The first 2-3 years are important after planting. How to grow feijoa in this period: you need to transplant it every year into a fresh nutrient substrate. Adult plants should be retained by the root during the transplantation, and fresh soil should only fill the space up to the walls of the pot.

How to plant a feijoa?

Like many plants, feijoa can be planted by seed. How to grow a feijoa from seeds:

  1. Seeds should be fresh, in no case last year. It is best to collect them yourself, not relying on the store. They need to be taken from an unfertilized fruit.
  2. Seeds are washed and dried for 6 days.
  3. The seeds laid on the soil surface are sprinkled with a layer of earth of 5 mm.
  4. Watering should be very careful not to wash out the seeds. To do this, you can cover the container with a tissue.
  5. The first shoots will appear in a month after the winter planting and 2 weeks later if planted in the summer.

Feijoa in the pot - watering

Watering and proper humidity of soil and air are important components of feijoa care at home. The plant is hygrophilous, on hot days other than watering, it needs frequent spraying. Water the ground as you dry, removing water from the pan after watering. In winter, the plant is useful to spray with warm water, watering at this time of the year should be more moderate.

How to feed feijoa?

Another condition for growing room feijoa - carrying out fertilizing. It is especially important to do this in the period of flowering and fruit setting. During the whole year, the fruit from the feijoa subtropics is fed every 15 days, alternating with phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium. For this, horse manure is diluted with water in a proportion of 1:10, and superphosphate and fly ash are also used. Before each feeding, the plant is watered with ordinary water.

How to care for feijoa?

For the feijoa plant, care is also important in the part of lighting and observing a certain temperature regime. In the summer, you can keep a tub with a flower on the balcony, where the temperature is kept at + 30 ° C. It is better to avoid direct sunlight. In the winter there is a natural slowdown in the development of the plant, so he needs rest. The temperature should be reduced to 14 ° C.

If desired, it is possible to produce the forming pruning. For this, in the first year, all the main stems are cut at 30-45 cm from the base. This creates a skeleton and eliminates unnecessary growth in the lower part of the bush. In 2-3 years lateral increments are formed above the stem. They are cut at a distance of 30-40 cm from each other in the form of a spiral. The angles of their separation from the trunk must be 45-60 °, between the branches - 90-120 °. In subsequent years, thinning pruning and removal of dry and weak shoots are carried out.

Feijoa - reproduction

Propagate a fruit called feijoa mainly cuttings or root shoots. When cuttings, you need to find the mother feijoa or take a large piece of the crown, remove all leaves from it, leaving only the top pair and put into the solution of heteroauxin for 16 hours. After that, you can land it in a mixture of humus and sand to a great depth, leaving only a third of the cuttings on the surface.

Growing feijoa at home from the root is also easy. This method is used at least as often as cuttings. Get shoots simply - feijoa refers to fast-growing plants that give abundant root shoots, which must be permanently removed. Part of it can be used for reproduction. For this, during the transplantation of an adult plant, you need to carefully separate the processes.