In this article, I will share my experience growing Carissa carandas in Florida.
If you follow my articles on a regular basis then you must have noticed that I was not posting new articles for the last two months. I was busy growing a few new fruit plants so that I could help Florida Gardeners here.
Carissa carandas is the scientific name of this fruit plant. If you search for this plant on the internet, you will most probably find a lot of web pages and most of those will tell you that this plant mostly grows in India and other Asian countries.
Once I saw this plant in my uncle's garden, I was amazed to see the beauty of this plant. Carissa carandas look awesome and the flowers of this plant are eye-catching. The interesting fact is that you can see a lot of flowers, small fruits and ripe fruits at the same time.
Is Florida suitable for growing Carissa?
Carissa carandas loves warm, subtropical, or tropical climates and thus, Florida is a suitable place to grow this plant. This plant can tolerate drought and this plant does not die easily (hardy type plant), so you can consider growing Carissa if you are living in Florida and other parts of the United States that match this type of climate.
This plant grows well in sandy loam soil (well-drained) but I have grown it in three different kinds of soils and believe me, they do good in almost all kinds of soils that can be found in Florida.
Can we grow Carissa carandas in a pot?
Yes, you can grow Carissa in a pot if you wish. But I will never recommend you to do so if you have space to grow this in the ground.
This plant can grow up to 15 ~ 18 feet. So it's better if you choose to grow it naturally. Of course, there are other variants of this plant made by us that do not grow that big. You can consider those variants if you are planning to grow it in a pot.
Sunlight
This plant can grow in full sunlight and in shade also. But the growth will be decreased in shady places. If you want to get more fruits then plant it in a place, where it can get a good amount of direct sunlight.
Propagation of Carissa carandas
We can propagate Carissa carandas by stem cuttings and from seeds as well.
But the success rate of propagation from seeds is very high so you can consider growing this plant from seeds.
And if you grow Carissa carandas from seed, you can expect fruits within 2 years.
Grow from stem cuttings:
For stem cuttings, consider a healthy stem of around 20 cm and having at least 5 nodes. Now, cut that with a sharp knife or any sharp cutting tool. Make sure, you take a hardwood portion for the cuttings.
Then in a container, take sand, soil and organic compost in 1:2:1 ratio. Then plant those.
Kindly note that the success rate might be around 30%, so make sure when you are trying to grow Carissa from stem cuttings, try to grow at least 5 cuttings at once.
You can see the result in 25 days. Do not touch the cuttings at all after planting. The newly grown roots might be displaced if you touch them.
Grow Carissa carandas from seeds
I have grown 3 Carissa carandas plants from seeds, and believe me I sowed only 3 seeds. So the success rate was 100% in my case.
How to collect the seeds?
When you find a ripe fruit, just pluck it and inside that fruit, there will be 5 to 7 seeds.
Just collect those. It is good if you can dry those seeds for 3 hours. But I did not follow that advice. I directly sowed those in my plastic pot.
If you wish you can buy the seeds from local shops or from online shops.
I have collected these seeds from a ripe fruit that I collected from my garden. (That plant was grown naturally from seeds)
Then prepare the soil and put the soil in the container and just sow the seeds. Once done, spray water.
Spray water once in two days.
Do you want to see the results?
Within 10 days, I get these little baby Carissa plants
After 45 days, you can plant those in the ground.
