From a Louisiana homestead
Fruit trees that'll actually bear for you down here
I've learned the hard way that a tree from the big-box garden center isn't always built for our mild Gulf South winters. This is where I keep track of the varieties that work here, so you can skip the heartbreak and get to the pie.
Covers Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, the Florida panhandle and the Texas Gulf coast.
Live oak: Oak Tree With Spanish Moss (237190073).jpeg · Suzanne Antonia · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons | Peach: Pomological Watercolor POM00005183.jpg · Deborah Griscom Passmore · Public domain · USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection
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Our winters are short. Pick trees that know it.
Peaches, apples, pears and plums need a certain number of cold winter hours (roughly 45°F and below) before they'll bloom right. A lot of popular varieties want 800 or more. Our winters often give a few hundred. Plant the wrong one and it'll leaf out late, bloom spotty, and hand you a handful of fruit if you're lucky. Match the tree to your winter and it's a whole different story.
From the Louisiana bayous to the Florida panhandle, we just don't get the long cold northern trees are bred for.
See the chill hours for your zip →
What to plant before the first cold snap
Bare-root season is about to start. Here's where I'd begin, with picks from LSU AgCenter and other extension lists for warm-winter growers.
Low-chill peaches
Bare-root trees go in the ground from about mid-November through February.
Good ones to look for: Gulfking, Tropic Beauty, Flordaprince
Rabbiteye blueberries
Set out two or more varieties together in winter.
Good ones to look for: Climax, Premier, Brightwell
Figs
Dormant figs plant easily over the winter.
Good ones to look for: Celeste, LSU Purple, O'Rourke
Muscadines
Pair a female vine with a self-fertile one like Ison.
Fruit that loves it down here
Peaches
The heartbreaker. Pick a low-chill one and it'll love you back every June.
Figs
Practically a Louisiana birthright. Plant one by the back steps and share with the birds.
Satsumas & citrus
Sweet, easy-peel, and ready around Thanksgiving. Just watch the hard freezes.
Muscadines
Native, tough as nails, and the smell of late summer down here.
Persimmons
Bright orange lanterns on bare branches. Barely needs a thing from you.
Blueberries
Rabbiteyes thrive in our acid soil. Plant two kinds so they cross-pollinate.
Pears
Old Southern sand pears shrug off fire blight and keep on giving.
Mayhaws
Wet-ground native that makes the best jelly you've ever had.
Porch talk
Notes from the orchard
Pull up a chair and pour a glass of sweet tea. Soon I'll post what's blooming, what fruited, and what the late freeze took, straight from our own Louisiana orchard. Real photos, real results, good years and bad.
First journal entries coming soon.
Get a heads-up when the good trees are back
The best low-chill peaches and satsumas sell out every winter. Sign up and I'll send y'all a short note when bare-root season opens and when Gulf South-friendly trees come back in stock. No spam, ever.
Signup opens soon. Check back as bare-root season gets going.