You can't grow dates in the Canberra region - except three years ago our date tree suddenly produced a mass of fruit, the first in the decade or two it's been growing on the bank below the house, and it's flowered and fruited each year since. I haven't actually eaten the dates - that bank is steep and the tree is now tall. I'd need a ladder, or the long extension fruit picker I've just bought to get them - but they looked extremely edible, and the fruit bats certainly enjoyed them.
I was given the date palm to grow indoors, and only planted it outside when it grew too big for its pot. To my surprise it grew even better outside than indoors, so I planted two others, as dates need male and female. I did plan on planting five, but by then the first date was getting so enormous that five of them would have meant we had a mini date farm, not a garden, with no room for roses, grevilleas, native limes, herbs and hellebores and other plants I love having nearby.
Our garden's climate is probably just a bit colder than yours, though it's protected from cold winds. But if I can grow and harvest dates, so can you. Just be aware that a date palm looks much bigger in your garden than they do in the movies, and until they get above head height, their prickles can be a major nuisance every time you want to mow around them.
But they are fun. Basically, I just love growing plants to see if they will grow here, like the custard apples that did fruit, though the fruit were so was small and tasteless that when the tree died after 15 years or so, I didn't weep for it, or replace it. I don't like eating custard apples, anyway. But I did feel triumphant when ours fruited.
If you do want to try growing custard apples in Canberra - or dates, avocadoes, paw paws, sapotes or lychees, and other subtropical fruits, be prepared for much more work than a plum tree or an apple. There are a thousand good reasons to stick to the fruits that grow well in our region, and that will crop despite a lot of neglect. The only reason to grow the subtropicals is curiosity, mixed with gardening glee when they actually survive and produce a harvest.
Accept that the fruit may be less sweet in a cooler climate, too, though to my surprise our bananas are sweeter - and much smaller - than any I've bought in a shop. The first requirement for attempting sub-tropical fruit in our climate is to keep them out of both hot and cold wind. Grow them by a sunny wall, or a large rock, and cover them with a commercial tree guard or even wrap them in second-hand bubble wrap for the first two or three winters.
Trees survive cold - and drought and heat, for that matter- much better when they have an established root system. Don't panic if they lose their leaves in winter - some plants that are evergreens up north become deciduous in cold climates. If the branch bends, the tree is alive. If it snaps, cross your fingers and hope the tree resprouts from the trunk in spring, and will become more cold hardy after a few years. Wait till mid-summer before declaring it deceased.
The next necessity is very good feeding indeed, and definitely regular watering. I finally realised that many tropical and sub-tropical fruits don't need heat as much as a good long wet season - water, and plenty of it.
I had my first Canberra garden in the mid 1970's, when "everyone knew" you couldn't keep a lemon tree alive in Canberra, or oranges, much less avocadoes. Now the first two are quite common, and a few dedicated gardeners even grow the third. It's a matter of "find the right place, then cosset", though the suburban Canberra climate is a bit warmer now than back then - all the central heating, the cars and the bitumen has made the city hotter, and possibly more lemon tree-friendly than 50 years ago.
Our bananas are flowering as I write this. We might just get ripe fruit by the summer school holidays for the kids to pick, as the smaller fruit ripen faster than big ones. The date palm looks like it is beginning to bloom again, so - maybe - we will have yet another date crop come autumn. Thanks to my new long-handled picker, I will be able to make date bread, date scones, and to smugly ask any visitor: "Feel like a date, love?"
This week I am:
- Trying not to be fooled by warm air. The nights are cold, and so is the soil, and the soil is where plant roots live. It is tempting to put seedlings in now. Resist.
- Picking the late navel oranges. With some canny planting you can have Valencia oranges fruiting from May, with later fruiting varieties lasting well into summer.
- Picking the parsley and celery tops often, so they don't go to seed before this season's ones have been planted and are cropping.
- Watching the plum trees burst into bloom. One day there are bare branches. Two days later, it's a froth of white.
- Enjoying the red flowers of ornamental quinces, which produce fruit that makes jelly that is just as good as any quince planted just for its fruit.
