If you know of any locations where feijoas are growing in UK public parks would love to hear.
Feijoas in London
If you’re in or near London there are a few plants that fruit in public places as well as Kew Gardens.
Hyde Park / Kensington Gardens I haven’t been there since 2013, but there was one fruiting not far from Lancaster Gate tube station. The fruit hadn’t ripened when I was there, wish I could comment on size or taste. I’ve marked where it was, to the best of recollection, on the map below, if someone in London can check and let me know I’ll correct the map to the exact location. Also if anyone can help I really want to get some seeds from that plant. I wrote to the garden staff asking for cuttings but got no response.
Feijoa map – Hyde Park – Kensington Gardens
Thanks to Rochelle and Jason for confirming the plant is the right red dot on the map. The plant has just finished flowering end of August and there’s a few photos below. A big thanks for checking for all of us!
Kew Gardens – Last time I was there was in 2014, I sadly can’t remember exact location. It was growing against a red brick wall which makes me think either the Mansion or Kitchen Garden. If you do know or have a photo we can use on here we’d appreciate it. Would also love seeds from this plant too 😉.
Feijoas in South Hampton
I’ve heard mention that there are feijoas growing at Marwell Zoo. If someone down there can confirm that’d be great.
Know of any other locations?
Please let other feijoa lovers know where there may be other plants growing in the UK in the comments below.
Not the plant, going to try for one later in the year, but does anyone know if you can buy the sour feijoa sweets lollies in the UK
Hi Margaret, you can indeed. The very helpful website SANZA have them: https://www.sanza.co.uk/Mayceys_Sour_Feijoas.asp
SANZA 🙂
I have a feijoa tree growing in my garden. Will I need another to cross pollinate and bear fruit or are they self pollinating?
Hey Phil, a second tree is always better 😉 however most plants these days seem to be self fertile. I’ve found by having 2 trees from different sources you get better fruit set and larger fruit.
Hope that helps.
Cheers,
Gav
Self I think, I only have one
Hi! I have just discovered this site after having a conversation on SANZA’s Facebook page! We have two feijoa trees on our allotment and left three planted at our old house all in Bucks/Berks area. Also spotted a tree of pretty good size in Cotswold Wildlife Park! This summer we had the most flowers we have ever seen on our trees!
Thanks Sarah, great to have more trees around the country! You left 3 plants!!! Great for any kiwi that finds them 😃.
So glad you had lots of flowers, such fantastic news 😃. Sadly all new growth and most early flower buds were destroyed by the May frosts and only added flowers later in the year but no longer enough time to fruit. Very frustrating!
Cheers,
Gav
Hi Gav,
Sorry to hear about your I’ll health, hope the op isn’t delayed.
We have 3 feijoas grown from seed which possibly came from Chiltern seeds about 8 years ago. These are decent plants now but have not yet had a flower. Two are in a walled garden fairly close to the sea on the west coast of Southern Scotland and the other is in a town garden further inland. Is there anything we can do to encourage flowering?
Thanks,
Liz
Hi Liz,
thanks for the well wishes 😃.
South west Scotland with the Gulf Stream hitting it should be good for feijoas. Do you get many frosts in the walled garden? This year we lost all outdoor flower buds to the May frosts here, a few came later but didn’t have enough time to set fruit.
Where in the wall garden are the plants situated?
Are you pruning them and if so when?
Mulching in late September, early October (could probably still get in now) to keep heat in the ground and keep the snow off the roots is a great start.
Adding potash or Organic Lucerne/alfalfa Pellets in early spring should help with flowering, the pellets go a long way and work like a spring mulch as soon as they get wet and expand. What would be really helpful is “Yates Thrive 2.5kg Certified Organic Natural Sulfate Of Potash” but can’t find that outside NZ.
Hope you get flowers and fruit soon, I have had a few plants hit 7 or 8 years before flowering.
Cheers,
Gav
Hi Gav,
Thanks for the reply. I have found a compass and checked the aspect of out feijoas. Glad I did because my guesses were wrong. The town garden which gets plenty of frost is south east facing. It is beside a wall and gets shelter from prevailing winds. It is approx 7 foot tall and looks very healthy.
The 2 feijoas in the coastal walled garden face south and they get some but not a lot of frost or snow. They are of different varieties even though the seeds were from the same packet – the one with small leaves is about 4 foot tall and the other is about 5 foot. This garden had droughts this year and last (13 weeks this year) and the feijoas are at the edge of a rain shadow from the wall. We didn’t water them at all, still they seemed none the worse for it. The vegetation around them is pretty rampant so we will need to cut it back.
None of out feijoas have had any pruning or special treatment but having read your good advice realise that we have not been good to them. This will change and a mulch of well rotted farmyard manure has already been applied. Looking forward to flowers and fruit soon, thanks again.
for your expert help.
Liz
P s we manage to get a few very wee kiwi fruits outside this year.
Hi There
Great to see some UK Feijoa growing!
I’m based near Twickenham in Greater London and have been growing some trees in my garden for years.
One in particular produces a pretty good haul nowadays. here is a picture of what was probably about half of our total harvest.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/8pwP6wAvn54CGtvYA
Wish we could get more of the named cold weather varieties from NZ.
My Aunty took all the soil from some and tried to see if she could get through customs but sadly they blocked her so my mini orchard plan for the allotment couldn’t happen!
Biggest tip I have found is having a paint brush to go around pollinating while they flower makes all the difference here where the bird pollinators are different.
Cheers
Dave
Hi Dave,
that’s fantastic and did much better than us this year. The hard frosts in May destroyed this years crop and I’ve spent Saturday cleaning up the plants from sooty mould due to being weak from the frost damage. Hoping 2021 will bring better results. The plants are oddly still flowering but too late for fruit this year.
Agree with the paintbrush, I also use a makeup brush. The blackbirds and woodpigeons have found the flowers here and love the petals, still not as good as manual pollination though.
Cheers,
Gav
Hi Dave. I’m in Twickenham too and have have been growing a small feijoa in the garden for a couple years. It seems to be growing at a very slow rate. Do you have yours in pots? Any advice really welcomed
hey we’re nearby in Whitton! Have three trees (not self fertile it seems) and have had fruit ONCE which was amazing. Hoping this year the addition of the third tree will help as the first two I think are from the same cutting.
If that doesn’t work we’ll have to try the paintbrush.
Hi Gav,
I hope you’ve recovered from your medical issues.
I bought land in Correze France to develop a forest garden . I have a couple of feijoas there, but I only planted them last autumn and don’t know how they’re doing. I have been propagating trees to plant in France for the last 3-4 years, but Brexit has bust that with no exports to France feasible any more (trees such as walnut, apple and many others banned, or phytosanitary certificates required which are too expensive to consider). I was thinking of selling my propagated trees here, but even that is difficult with the new laws!
So I’m thinking, get a feijoa plantation going here in Devon. For fruit production rather than tree production. Could you help out supplying some plants? Though it’s a lot warmer in Devon than Scotland, it might still be beneficial to start with some hardier plants than I’d get just from growing from seed.
Hi John, sorry for the late reply a lot has been happening and Carpal Tunnel has stopped me from typing much.
I really wish I could, Devon would be a great place to grow feijoas, much more sensible than Scotland! With the weather the way it was earlier this year we’ve now lost about half of the trees and many that did survive are severely burnt. Roger who I have mentioned on here: https://feijoas.uk/2021/03/31/feijoa-farm-closed/ has recently imported 1,000 plants from New Zealand to grow in the south east of England. He may be able to put you in contact with people that can help increase your plant numbers.
Cheers,
Gav.
Hi Gav,
Have you tried the speech to text option?
Kia ora Katy,
Thanks for thinking of me and trying to help. I used to have a Windows phone which used Cortana for speech to text, it was brilliant. Sadly my Windows phone broke and if I were to get a new one Microsoft have stopped offering security updates for Windows phone. Cortana on the PC is rubbish, you just can’t do as much. I have tried both Google voice and Siri, sadly for me they are terrible compared to Cortana for Windows phone and I will admit get frustrated if it hasn’t worked the first 3 to 5 times and give up. I haven’t tried Dragon or other paid software.
During my heart op I had 3 strokes (2 very tiny and 1 medium) they have made my right arm almost useless, my dystonia shakes worse and my speech and ability to chew quite hard, especially if I talk for more than 3 to 5 minutes.
Left hand is decent today and catching up on feijoa emails 😀
Cheers,
Gav
I have a bush but I’m in NZ. I didn’t know they had even made it to the UK, honestly thought it was just an NZ thing
Great stuff Sean! I hope you’ve just had a fantastic season of fruit 😀
Cheers,
Gav.
I have 2 trees growing in Manchester. In pots unfortunately one had an accident whilst repotting and lost most of its root ball. The other is doing fine. What are the chances of it flowering and fruiting? Really pleased to see so many people growing may be worth trying to swap cuttings so varieties are spread a bit.
Hi Shofiq, sorry for the slow response, a lot has been happening here and growing season is upon us spending as much time outside as possible.
So glad you have 2 trees, it should come back from root ball damage, maybe give the top of it a bit of a cut back and take the strain off the roots. Manchester is warmer than Edinburgh and as long as they’re in a sunny position away from harsh winter winds they should flower and fruit.
I like the idea of cutting swaps. I have been sending out seeds to different people around the country this year with me not being able to keep growing, hoping that there’s 200+ new trees growing across the country. I think there’s a few 100 more sitting here if anyone needs any.
cheers,
Gav.
Hi everyone,
I’ve just discovered your site (I’m always late to the game). My feijoa plant has only just had its first flower, I’m so excited.
I bought 2 online in the UK as small plants about 7 years ago after living in New Zealand for a year and discovering the fruit. Since being home in Wiltshire and having the plants in pots this is the first time they have flowered.
The only other place I’ve seen this plant in the UK is at the Eden project in Cornwall, at the very entrance as you walk in to queue to go in.
Excited to see if my other plant flowers, will keep you posted!
Liz
Hi Liz, sorry for the slow response, been a lot happening this year. Great to hear you’re a feijoa fan, hopefully you get fruit this year!
Thanks for the heads up on the feijoa plant at the Eden Project, do you know if it fruits? The Eden Project is somewhere I really want to get to, also want to try and get to The Lost Gardens of Heligan.
Cheers,
Gav.
Hi
I’ve just purchased a feijoa tree for my mum at http://www.flowerland.co.uk in Iver – they had 4 or 5. It’s s Christmas present I purchased her a quince & medlar previously – she’s subsequently made jam etc from these fruit.
Any tips or recommendations for plant care would be great.
It’s new home will be in Hampshire on the coast but a fairly sheltered garden. I’m hoping (from google research) that it may be 2 or 3 years before fruit bearing, after its settled in new home🤞
Hi Sheona,
Quince and medlar are great as well as feijoas. Out of wind and in the sunniest spot possible. Hold off planting outside until after the last frosts in April/May, add a deep mulch around October to keep ground warmth in, this will help protect the plants roots over winter and keep the fruit coming as winter hits.
Depending on age of the plant and variety of the plant they can produce fruit in the first year.
Hope that helps.
Cheers,
Gav.
Hi Gav
Many thanks for that helpful info, have passed on your advice. Hopefully will remember to send update later in the year!
Looking to expand the collection with a loquat in the summer.
HNY & thanks again
Sheona
Hiya. We have been growing feijoas at our allotment in Tooting for 14 years now, we have 5 plants, 2 original ones (male and female) and cuttings that have just started fruiting (took about 7 years to get fruit). We hand pollinate every year and find London conditions very good for them. The older plants fruit prolifically and, although biannual we have found that a little prune in the winter helps them fruit every year. I have also discovered 2 very mature trees planted by the council in a street not far from us, they fruit heavily in the ‘off years’ and are of a slightly different variety, I’d say they are at least 3p years old…. From next year we hope to have a surplus, so if you’d like to come and taste, get in touch !
Hi Jeroen, sorry for the very late reply, gone and broke my vertebrae again, silly me. London would be fantastic for feijoas, the extra warmth in the city would be very helpful.
Great to know there are street feijoas in London. Hope feijoas across the UK are becoming more common.
Do you need to thin your fruit or do they all get to the point of being ripe? What time of year are your fruit falling? Just I’m finding some years it can be as early as late October with the season finishing mid November or early December, but other years like the one just been starting late November and the last fruit falling on Waitangi Day (6th of February for the non-Kiwis) although due to all the disruption of last year, movement of plants and the plants that did survive there were very few fruit and timing could have been off.
I’ve just started a few 100 seeds from last/this years fruit, they’re starting to sprout now, will hope to get about 1,000 new seedlings growing this year as they are from third generation plants, the seem to be hardier for the Scottish climate and were the ones that survived the move and the cold.
Hope to get down to London to have a taste in the near future.
Cheers,
Gav
Hi Jeroen, just discovered this website as looking to grow feijoas in Wimbledon, so great news to see yours nearby are successful. Would you mind telling me what street in Tooting has the council trees as I’d be very keen to see them? Many thanks, Sarah.
I have two to plant in the allotment in Tunbridge Wells about a metre high and two large 2m high trees in pots that have only ever had a couple of flowers near Hastings. Have repotted the 2m trees into much bigger pots with a pile of horse manure and fertiliser so my fingers are crossed for a crop this year!!
That’s great Sue, hopefully you will be getting fruit this year. Be great if there’s a warm summer, helps a lot in crop size.
Cheers,
Gav.
Hi there, I have a plant in my garden I Edinburgh. It’s about 4 years old. Growing steadily and lots of leaves but no fruit! I’ve only got the one plant and it’s Scotland so I’m not overly optimistic about getting fruit! That would be lovely if it happened though! One of the main things I miss from NZ. I may actually get a second plant and see if that helps….
Hi Kim,
It can be done, before all my health issues we were just west of Edinburgh. Although it took me a while, I started with seeds from one of the coldest parts of NZ that I know of that grows feijoas.
I am hoping to be starting up again Feijoas – starting to grow again. – Feijoas UK
Hopefully you have luck soon.
Cheers,
Gav
I have a Feijoa in my garden. I bought it at a garden show at RHS Wisley at least 10 years ago. It was about 6″ high but is now 6 feet high. It would be higher but I trim it back every autumn. Every year it is covered in flowers but as yet, it has not produced fruit. I live on Hayling Island where we have Mediterranean weather, so I can’t understand why it doesn’t fruit
Hi Sue, wondering if you may have a single sex plant, a lot of varieties in the UK aren’t self fertile. The best thing to do is try using a paint brush or a makeup brush and moving pollen from the flowers to other flowers.
Depending on variety the fruit usually in the UK start to drop autumn early winter, wondering if you are possibly trimming a little early? They form fast and like a lot of water during the period the fruit are expanding.
hopefully this year will be the year!
Cheers,
Gav.
Hi, there is a very well established feijoa tree growing outside Hilliers garden centre, Cheddar, Somerset. With permission I ate some of the fruit earlier this year. I absolutely love these plants having had one in my garden in New Zealand. I’ve a healthy 6ft plant in a 120litre pot.
I only have a patio where I am renting, any suggestions as to how big I can grow in a pot most welcome.
So three years late but I can confirm Marwell Zoo has a bunch of feijoa trees around the tiger enclosure behind fencing (I haven’t been for a while but it certainly did a few years ago.) Unfortunately, all the fruit had fallen and was inside the fenced-off bit so I couldn’t grab any… because I would have. (I’ve literally found a dropped feijoa in a garden centre and eaten it!) I need a second tree. We planted our first tree 6 years ago right before the Beast from the East struck, but it’s still going, slowly and is in desperate need of some foliage and a friend! (This is the last time it flowered 2020)
Hi Mel, thanks so much for confirming the plants are there and the photo. Looks like a great tree with some serious size. I would have done the same if I found a feijoa on the floor of a garden centre.
Hope you manage to get a second tree and you start getting fruit soon.
Sorry for the slow response, I keep losing my eyesight since the strokes and have become super sensitive to light even from computer screens which means I don’t get a chance to respond to people as often.
Cheers,
Gav
hi, I visited the Hyde park feijoas yesterday. they had decent sized fruits, which had the taste of green apples. I can get some cuttings, but I’ve heard it’s difficult for them to root. do you have any advice on rooting feijoa cuttings?
Hey Dan, great to see a few dropping, they look a little small, did it rain much in London this year?
Cheers,
Gav.
Cuttings:
I will create a page about cuttings on here, below is a message I sent to a fellow Kiwi about taking cuttings on 8th of September 2022. It’s a bit of a mess and probably repeat myself a few times, my brain is still a fluctuating mess of being able to hold a thought for a few seconds before it’s gone. If I talk about a graphic in the post it’s this one: https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-2463d786711b7c2ec037c106685fe9a7-lq and you want to follow the one on the left to get a few nodes under ground. Spring is the best time for cuttings, but if you’ve got material now, give it a go. I’ve been surprised at how they can take at odd times of year.
For cuttings, this year I’m really just using broken branches, usually foxes or badgers, occasionally neighbours footballs. I have a few pots on the north side of the house, out of direct sun but still bright, usually straight into melcourt compost – Melcourt compost on Amazon, I find it best, but I use whatever I have at the time. The pots are located in the shade as close as possible to the house for warmth but have no extra warmth added. They’ve just started to add new shoots in the last 2 weeks on some of them. Generally speaking a good soak once per month and any added rain is enough to keep them going. Even doing this very hands-off approach for a plant that takes from cuttings fairly easy you can get anywhere from 10 to 90% strike rate. They can take a year to take, I just fill a pot then move on to another one with the date of the last cutting added to the pot so I know after a year how they are doing. You can generally tell that they are rooting if the leaves haven’t fallen off after a year and hopefully adding new growth.
In the past I would normally cut them to almost uniform length, but whilst I wait to see what happens with my setup / land etc. For example the long ones in the pot, they had lost their lower leaves and cutting them down to 10 to 15cm wouldn’t add any extra cutting material it would just make them short. They were broken in spring this year by foxes fighting on the driveway (I have about 150 plants between 20cm and 2meters tall in pots on the driveway), I just cut off the damaged wood to a node and pushed them in, they’ve now started growing giving me plants about 30 to 40cm tall.
After about 3 months, I like to feed them with a strong seaweed mix monthly and then leave them as long as possible to develop strong roots, then move them on to their own pots/ground.