Third year of growing lychee trees / Prophylactic self-isolation series. Day 166th.

In January 2017 I was in Portugal and ate lots of tasty juicy fresh lychees. Some time later I started a new project – growing lychee trees from seeds.

How I succeeded? Was it easy? Was it not?

Here are the steps and results of my “intuitive”, not “googled” lychee tree growing journey:

1. I ate fresh lychees and put lots of seeds together into a regular disposable plastic bag (I remember I did not wash them)
2. After 3-4 days I talked with a friend of mine and she told me “the seeds should be planted into soil directly after the fuits/vegetables/berries were eaten, the same day”. That meant – I was late for a few days already!
3. Despite of the fact that I was late with planting – I put the seeds into soil, they were still moist, because sit together in one bag
4. Approximately 12 seeds were planted
5. After some time all the seeds germinated and I saw the first sprouts sticking out. Hooray!!!
6. “Hooray” lasted for some time and was replaced with “Hmm, oh, why…” because one by one the tiny offspring started to disappear – one by one, week by week they started to die. That was sad
7. After a few months I had only five of them, planted together in one ceramic pot
8. Later on, only four survived and were growing normally for a half a year or so
9. But after that period – two of those four decided to die too – they just stopped their existence! That was sad again…
10. I kept two remaining young trees together in one pot for more than a year when I started to notice that it is already not enough place for both of them being together in one pot
11. This spring, 2020, I noticed plenty of new tiny leaves appeared here and there on one lychee tree. However, probably I did not water them well, or maybe spring sun was too shiny, – all those tiny leaves dried…
12. The stem of one of the young tree is now firm and light brown colored, as a stem of a real tree; the stem of another one is also firm, but still green colored and thinner
13. In June 2020, I planted them into different pots

My lychee trees are growing, but that is what I have l’earned within the three years:

• Lychee trees do not need any fertilizer, any. Even those “natural” and “organic” ones will “burn their leaves”. Only my-made Bokashi brew (home made fertilizer from fruit and vegetable peels) was good during the last year

• I would wish to educate myself earlier about fertilization of lychee. Because I used organic fertilizer for citrus plants to nourish lychee, thinking that “All the exotic trees are similar and therefore would like the same fertilizer”. I was wrong
• Ants like lychee. I used “natural” spray in the evenings for a few weeks and collected the ants by hand, letting them to find a new place to live, but not on my trees (never hurt the ants!)
• The structure of soil should ensure well drainage. This tip is probably the same for any plants
• A pot should be high for the main root to have space going deep – that makes a tree feel happy:)

Within those three years I did not follow any of the instructions from youtube videos or other web sources, because I started to educate myself about lychees only this summer, when my lychee trees were already 3 years old. However, I found these videos (below) as proper ones to guide me in a future:

Pepe’s fruit trees

Grow Lychee Tree in Container, Pro-Nursery Annual maintenance, Be the Creator, Jul’19

How to grow LYCHEE tree from seeds in Container | Lychee Seed Germination

Even I am not understanding Hindi – I learn from wonderful Indian people a lot about gardening

What else?

• In late spring 2020, when the temperature outside at nights was more than 8-10 Celsius degrees – I kept my lychee trees on a balcony for a month, but each evening I have checked the real temperature for the current night – it should be more than 8-10 C. If lower – the plant could froze. Why I kept the plants in cold? I read it would facilitate blooming
• However, my lychee trees decided not to bloom this summer, even after cold therapy:)
• Right now, in late summer 2020, my lychee trees are positioned at east-south part of the apartment on the balcony, to get maximum hours of sun during the day (but not on the direct sun)
• I have collected manually all the larvas of ants (I think that were larvas, but I could not find proper info to prove that). The larvas stuck to leaves and stems of one plant only. For a long time I thought that it should be like this, that these outgrowths are a part of plant life, but I think I was wrong. Anyway, I have not found any info explaining this “larva phenomenon”, that make this post as a unique opportunity to know about it

Please let me know in the comments below if you know anything about these “larvas” and how to deal with them properly!:)

Thanks to Youtube, now I started to educate myself, and found the professionals who explain many many things about growing lychee. One of them stressed that “Lychee is close to impossible to grow from seed”. Yep, now I feel proud of myself – I managed to do something impossible – that is to grow lychee plant from a seed:)

Yep, now I feel proud of myself – I managed to do something impossible – that is to grow lychee plant from a seed:)

Some final remarks on growing a new type of plant with minimum knowledge:

1. Love what you are doing. Love and passion cover “the impossibles”
2. I need to say, people from India know so much about planting, so truly, because they are so close to Nature, yes that is true. Even I am not understanding Hindi – I learn from wonderful Indian people a lot about gardening. Thank you!
3. Educate yourself by finding professional literature, or professionals on a social media