whats the best tasting guava???

[Stevetoad]

i decided that i want to plant a guava tree. whats the best kind??? ive only tried guava a hand full of times and know nothing about them. do they need full sun? lots or little water? ill take any info i can get...thanks

[BigFrond]

I don't know them by name. However, there are two distinct types (pink flesh and white flesh). The white flesh is much more preferred by Asians. I don't really care for it, I just grow it for the wife. The leaves from the tree will give you the tropical look but it will take a while for them to break down.

The fruit can be round or pear shape. I have the pear shape and it is better. You should grow your guava in full sun to get the best taste. Unfortunately, this is the time of the year where the fruits are 3/4 of the way from being ripe. This is not good when winter is in full gear. The fruits are best between year 3-5. It's maximum fruit size during these years. Afterward the tree will get taller and the fruit size decreases from optimum level.

These trees are heavy feeders and will zap the nurtrients from your soil so adding compost should be once or twice a year.

[Stevetoad]

good info. thank you

[MattyB]

BTW, I'm pretty sure Big Frond is talking about Tropical Guavas, Psidium guajava, not Pineapple Guavas, or Strawberry Guavas, which are different trees completely.

Good question Steve. I wanted to know this too when I was shopping for guavas. I've done a lot of reading on the internet about the differnt types and it seems that no one really knows for sure what you've got or how it'll perform for you. Plus, some guavas are grown from seed and not grafted, so that jacks it all up too.

A friend brought over a round guava with pink flesh, unknown cultivar name, that was absolutely delicious, which is what got me wanting a guava tree. The neighbor lady has about a dozen guava trees and about this time each year I pick up the fallen fruit, out by the sidewalk and try them. Some are round some are pear shaped, some have white flesh, some pink, none of them are really sweet though. She's an old Asian lady with lots of mature exotic fruit trees, and from all the pots around I think she grows everything from seed that she's collected from her shopping at the Asian markets, so maybe seed grown trees are why her fruit is not optimum, not sure. I got a "Tropical Pink", which I'm pretty sure is a generic name, and it's not as sweet as I want it yet. And I got an "Indian White" on a recommendation from Tom (CRFG member) at Home Depot. The Indian White has only 1 fruit on it so far, so next year we'll know.

Sorry I don't have any other information than that, but I thought that it might help you get a feeling of what we do to navigate odd fruit cultivars that are not commonly grown. Sometimes it's a crap shoot. If someone can direct you to a cultivar name, from a specific nursery, that they are successful with, then that's probably the best way.

[Patricia-CR]

I love the tree, its trunk and branches, and prefer the almost round red flesh one.

[LJG]

I have "Red Malaysian Guava" and it is very sweet. Plus it looks great when not in flower or fruit.

[MattyB]

Good info Len, thanks! I've gotta try one of those if mine don't perform.

How long, or how big were they before producing good fruit? Did you have lackluster fruit when they were young or have they always been great?

[LJG]

I bought mine as a 10 gallon plant from Exotica Nursery here in Vista. He has hundreds of odd fruit trees. It fruited the first year as a small plant. Right now mine looks bad because I transplanted it in summer but it still flowered and put on about 30 fruit. The nice thing with this plant is the red leaves when it is growing. It makes an attractive/useful tree year round.