Lychees

Back in 1969 I bought a book entitled The After-Dinner Gardening Book by Richard W. Langer.  As you can figure out from the title it’s about growing houseplants from fruits and vegetables that you eat.  That includes not only the usual suspects like avocados, sweet potatoes, oranges, and pineapples but also more exotic things like mangos, papayas, and kiwis.  The most exotic, to me anyway, was the lychee possibly because I’d never eaten a fresh one and they weren’t something you found at a central Kentucky grocery store back then (or maybe even now).

I put the book on the shelf and forgot about it until this summer.  On my last trip to New York Briar and I saw a display of lychees at a store on W. 14th St. so I bought some.  (Like the Upper West Side, 14th St. is a foodie’s gourmet grocery-shopping heaven.)  I ate a few at Briar’s apartment and brought the rest home with me.  After eating those I planted three of the seeds in 6-inch pots filled with a standard houseplant potting mix.  One of the seeds came from a fruit I ate in New York and the other two went straight into the pots after I ate the fruits in Charleston.  Ten days later two of the seeds had germinated and the seedlings had emerged above the potting soil.  One never germinated.  It turns out that lychee seeds dehydrate and die quickly after you remove them from the fruit and the one that didn’t germinate was the one I’d removed in New York.

They are now about two-months old.  Don’t they look cute?

In their natural habitat lychees grow to be 40- to 60-foot tall trees, which is obviously taller than my living room.  From what I’ve read they make nice houseplants if you judiciously crown- and root-prune, water, and fertilize them.  Think bonsai without the copper wires.  If both survive I doubt if I’ll have room for two lychees so at some point I may let some responsible gardener adopt one (references required).

Comments

[Allan]

We'll take one, especially if they ever bear fruit.

we can't get fresh lychees (or litchi, as the French call them) here.

[LittleMike]

Are Lychees the new Raspberries? We found them everywhere while we were visiting in Australia. They flavor (not the fruit) is very popular here now.

[Mike]

Allan, sorry but they won't bear fruit if kept as a houseplant. Litchi is the Latin name for the species. Lychee, litchi, lichi, and leechee are some of the common name spellings. The sign in the NY store said lychee.

Litte Mike, pomegranate is the newest popular flavor in stores here in Charleston. Evidently pomegranate cures everything that ails you.

[Margaret]

What do they taste like? I might have to google them. However, I'm busy googling Saint Louis, Senegal where my daughter will be going to teach in a few months. EEK!

[martin, perth scotland]

rambutan, which is related to the lychee makes a great houseplant, with leaves like the sweet chestnut, but over a foot long.
I've just sown some lychee seeds from some large lychees from Thailand, in the hope of growing some interesting bonsai.
Have you tried passionfruit seeds? They give you a vigorous exotic-looking vine.

[Justine]

Rambutan!!!!!!! That's the fruit that I've been trying to remember for weeks! I was going to have to go down to the asian grocery store to look at the can they're sold in to find the name, but now I don't have to go!! Thanks!

[Sean]

I'd only heard of these from the show called Avatar: the last airbender where they were used as bait to catch monkeys and the people liked them too. I thought they were just a made up fruit until I looked them up.

They sound like very interesting fruit trees. I ordered an air layered Mauritius from Florida today for a reasonable price and priority mail shipping. I'm looking forward to growing one!