Tropicals & Tender Perennials: Papaya trees, 1 by rjuddharrison

rjuddharrison wrote:
And finally, this is the mother of all the trees I"ve started who is in her 5th year of producing. She is in a very large pot on the deck, and has survived last years christmas eve snow. Actually all of the papayas made it through the cold, but did not make the spring rains. I understand there is a way to get around the water log problem by using H202 (hydrogen peroxide) anyone interested I can dig up the link here at DG.
In the past, I could not find a fertilizer that the Papayas liked at all, although they did mediocre with Miracle Grow. I was pleased to have found a fertilzer that I call off the shelf, as it's intended for Hibiscus, but the Papayas...well they completely love it. It's 18-8-28 Hibiscus fertilizer - called space city fertilzer. I found it at yardgeek.com. They use UPS, so shipping is one of the biggest complaints. It is soluable- Use every week or every other week.
As mentioned in the thread, transplanting them after they've been planted in the ground is pretty tricky. So it's best to keep them in pots until you find a place to plant them. If you treat them like perrenials, then you'll always have 1 ready to replace the ones that didn't make it. I've noticed that after about 8-9 feet tall papayas don't do very well in a pots., This one is in a pot, but I couldn't get a good pict, so this is the top of it peaking over the roof, the pot is huge.
Hope this helps! They really are pretty easy!
Rj