JungleSeeds

A small cool tolerant, deciduous tree to 15ft. Custard apples make excellent container specimens even grown from seed when they can come into fruit bearing age after just 2-3 years. The trees produce a small knobbly fruit with soft, creamy white flesh often having a minty or custardy flavour. Often called the sugar apple it is extremely popular throughout the tropics.

Averrhoa carambola is a slow growing tree from Asia. In nature, the trees will reach about 30 feet but much smaller when pot grown and you can expect a 5ft tall tree after 5 years. The pinnate leaves are sensitive and the leaves fold together at night, much like mimosa and we believe also slightly sensitive to touch. The trees produce the well known star fruit, which is an astringent fruit with a sweet and sour flavour. The slow growing nature of these trees makes them an excellent container tree and flowers can be expected in the 3rd to 4th year from seed. In the greenhouse, these plants start flowering in late spring and will have up to 4 flushes of flowers throughout the year. Flowers form in the leaf axils. The variegated white and purple flowers are followed by yellow to golden brown fruits that are up to 5 inches (12.7 cm) long. Carambola needs a rich, moist, slightly acidic soil mix with full sun to partial shade and kept on the dry side over winter while the tree is dormant.

A plant that I have grown on and off for a number of years but so far I have not managed to get any to fruit. The plants look attractive though with a tall stem topped by a cluster of palmate leaves and it grows easily from seed. The small flowers are scented which I found a bonus when grown as an ornamental pot plant. This variety forms fruit on shorter 4ft plants.

A novelty plant from Peru that has good use both for its tomato like edible red fruit (assuming you have space to allow it mature) and large downy leaves making it a bold pot plant for terrace decoration in summer. Makes a sparse shrub with terminal 4” racemes of 1” pink flowers spring to summer. Recently shown on one of the gardening programmes used for large leaved ornamental purposes. Quick growing.

A novelty plant from Peru that has good use both for its tomato like edible yellow fruits (assuming you have space to allow it mature) and large downy leaves making it a bold pot plant for terrace decoration in summer. Makes a sparse shrub with terminal 4” racemes of 1” pink flowers spring to summer. Recently shown on one of the gardening programmes used for large leaved ornamental purposes. Quick growing.

The most widely cultivated species is Diospyros kaki or Japanese persimmon and cultivars are sold in supermarkets as Sharon fruit. These are sweet, slightly tart fruits with a soft to occasionally fibrous texture. Native to China, it is deciduous, with broad, stiff leaves. Cultivation of the fruit extended first to other parts of east Asia, and was later introduced to southern Europe in the 1800s, and numerous cultivars like 'Hachiya' have been selected. Seed grown plants produce both male and female trees.

Diospyros kaki prefer a good deep loamy soil in sun or light shade disliking very acid or wet and poorly drained conditions. Dormant plants of Diospyros kaki are quite hardy in Britain, tolerating temperatures down to about -14°C but they require warmer summers than are normally experienced in Britain in order to ripen their fruit and wood. The young growth in spring, even on mature plants, is frost-tender and so it is best to grow the plants in a position sheltered from the early morning sun. A warm sunny wall improves the chance of producing ripe fruit and trees fruit freely when grown under glass. Fruits are frequently produced outdoors at Kew but not ripe until November or into December.

The Date-Plum Diospyros lotus is native to southwest Asia and southeast Europe. It was known to the ancient Greeks as "the fruit of the Gods", but its English name is derived from the small 2cm fruit, which has a taste reminiscent of both plums and dates. Another hardy tree to -20°C. Seed grown plants produce both male and female trees.

The American persimmon, Diospyros virginiana is native to eastern North America.  The small plum like fruits are very astringent and mouth numbing when green, but sweet and edible when ripe after a hard freeze; matures in late autumn. A small to medium sized tree to 60 feet with a round-topped crown of crooked branches and totally frost hardy. The glossy leathery leaves make this tree a good one for landscaping. Seed grown plants produce both male and female trees.

An edible fruit-bearing sub tropic with attractive large hairy leaves.  Hardiness similar to the cordylines to -10°C. You sometimes see it growing in a London suburb front garden. This plant flourishes in hot dry conditions so over wintering in a conservatory would be a good alternative.

The Surinam cherry rarely grown outside of the Americas is a bush or small tree to 25ft in height. It has adapted to both subtropical and tropical climates and is hardy to -3°C when full grown. Plants like full sun and are drought tolerant, needing only moderate rainfall. Fruits develop and ripen in just 3 weeks from flowering and are usually grown from seed. Eaten fresh with sugar or used in preserves.

This interesting small shrub will take some frost to perhaps -8°C, therefore fully  hardy in some gardens. In mid summer it bears unusual large dark red flowers and if you grow two plants together, they will cross fertilise to bear delicious “guava” flavoured fruits.

Originally native from India to Malaysia, H. sabdariffa, also known as ‘Red Sorell’, is now widely distributed and cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions round the globe. The attractive red or purple seed pods are edible and have an invigorating, astringent flavour. In the Caribbean, the calyx-covered fruits are brewed in water to make a refreshing, cranberry-coloured tea. They are also used in salads, jellies (such as Jamaica’s famous rosella jam), sauces, soups, beverages, chutneys, pickles, tarts, puddings, syrups, and wine. Powdered dried red sorrel is added to commercial herb teas such as Red Zinger for flavour and colour.

The dragon fruit sometimes seen in supermarkets is actually the fruit of a cactus. We find the taste of supermarket fruit very bland compared with the taste of freshly harvested fruit in the tropics. However if you are into cactus this one might be worth trying. Pictures show fruit and commercial growing conditions.

The sapodilla is a very common fruit in the tropics, and can be grown easily from seed although the resulting fruit quality is variable. It has glossy green leaves up to 5 in long which have pointed tips, and white flowers which produce 5-8 cm fruits. Cool tolerant to just above frost level it might be worth a try as a pot plant. Fruit is not produced though until about the 5th year. This tree is also famous for initially providing the ingrediants for chewing gum which used the rubber like latex extracted from the tree trunks (chicle)

Indigenous to Chile and Bolivia, this species bears fragrant, purplish red, berry-like fruit. These are edible, though tart, and are often made into jam or conserves. Abundant small, pink or white bell-shaped flowers are borne in leaf axils. Its dense growth, to about 15 ft (4.5 m) in height and tolerance to trimming, makes ugni suitable for hedges in the milder parts of the UK. It will also adapt to light shade.The 15mm fruit, borne freely even on small plants, raw or cooked is delicious, very aromatic and tastes of wild strawberries. Leaves can be used as a tea substitute and the roasted seeds as a coffee substitute.

A tough tropical small shrub that tolerates down to frost levels with small white flowers followed by “Guava” 1cm to 5cm fruits. Easy to grow from seed flowering in the second year.

You can eat the fruit from this plant but it is not exactly a feast from 2" fruits! However the flowers are an attractive red colour often flowering profusely on an 18" to 2ft shrub. Best grown in bright conditions and it will tolerate a slight frost when it will behave deciduously.

A small bush or shrub from South America much like the tomato in looks and habit. Usually fruits in 9-12 months, so a frost free environment is required. Pepino’s will stand a few degrees of freezing however. Our trial plants started flowering in August from a spring sowing and the fruit that ripened around Christmas was best described as a sweet melon flavour with the texture of a Kiwi fruit and quite delicious. One fruit shown in the picture was about the size of a grapefruit. Best grown like a pot tomato plant and in the same conditions although they have proved much hardier and continue to grow through our winter even in a cold frost free greenhouse.

Medium sized shrub or small tree to 6-10ft from the Andes and a favourite of the Incas. The naranjilla is subtropical and enjoys slightly cooler than tropical temperatures so more suitable in the UK as a cool greenhouse plant. Leaf veins are generally a deep purple colour and attractive but often thorny! Naranjilla's like frequent watering and can stand brief temperature drops below freezing. It is easily container grown, the naranjilla is thought the be a short day plant, and may only set fruit when there are 8-10 daylight hours. The plant has bright orange fruits about the size of a large cherry tomato, covered with numerous fuzzy hairs that rub off when ripe. Pulp is green, acid, and of excellent flavour.

Closely allied to the naranjilla, and similar vegetatively but with a quite different fruit, the cocona is much less known outside its natural range. The flesh has a mild flavour faintly suggestive of tomato, while the pulp has a pleasant, lime-like acidity. These plants are the cultivated thornless type.

One of the most famous trees of the tropics. The large bean pods have edible flesh around the seeds, the pods can be cooked as a vegetable when young and even the bark is edible. The fruit is high in Vitamin C and cultivated all over the world. Before you get too excited though they are large trees not fruiting until 7 or 8 years old but the small trees with their soft downy attractive leaves make a good pot plant for a frost free environment. Now for the interesting news - Normal trees produce both sharp and occasionally sweet fruits grown from seed. The seeds of our variety are from a unique hybrid strain bred specifically for long very sweet fruits and also bred for higher altitude climates. The trees will tolerate cooler wetter conditions (similar to our summer climate) and will even take a slight frost (1 or 2 degrees C below freezing when mature)

Cocoa is from the tree Theobroma cacao, the plant that produces cocoa. Novelty value really, but fresh seed germinates easily enough and grows quickly to produce a small tree in a heated greenhouse. A challenge to get it to fruit, but Kew has fruiting plants in their hot houses on medium 6ft trees and one of our customers sent me pictures of his small tree in fruit from our supplied seed. The fruit is a large yellow pod some 6" long full of large seeds from which the cocoa is derived and surrounded by a sweet edible pulp. Seedlings develop into attractive small trees, with large glossy pinnate leaves. Germination is fairly quick and easy - 1 to 2 weeks in a humid sterile well draining seed compost at 30c. The seeds only remain viable for a short duration and therefore require to be sown immediately.  They will then need a warm well-lit propagator to bring them on.

Germination -- Easy ■ Moderate ■ and Challenging ■

Backlog for Fresh Seed ♦

Hardiness - To -5°C җ To -10°C җҗ Fully Hardy җҗҗ

Needs Shady Position ☻ Sunny Position ☻ Water Loving ♥