Oviedo, Florida, Zone 9B: This is an ongoing documentation of my Pickering mango tree.

Potting a Mango Tree: To pot any mango tree, I learned that I need to mix in course sand and perlite with the potting soil to maximize drainage and because mango trees love sandy soil. The potting mix I use is a combination of 60% potting soil, 20% coarse sand, and 20% perlite.

Planting a Mango Tree in the Ground: I dug a big hole five times the size of its 3-gallon pot, added a bucket of vegetable scraps, salmon fish bones, and top it with a bag of potting soil, then I put the tree down, tamp the soil, and added a bag of Black Kow around the base of the tree. I do not mulch around the base within the drip line.

Spring 2020: I visited Leaph Michaelson’s food forest in West Palm Beach and fell in love with Leaph’s Pickering mango tree he planted in front of his house. You can contact Leaph Michaelson via Facebook. Here is what Leaph’s Pickering mango tree looks like.

I bought this Pickering mango tree from Leaph Michaelson in West Palm Beach in Spring 2020. I first pot it up in a 25 gallon pot but it wasn’t happy because little did I know that mango trees like sandy soil and the rich heavy potting soil wasn’t making it happy. So I cleared out space and planted the Pickering mango tree into the ground in July 2020. I orginally bought a 7-gallon potted tree.

Pickering mango tree’s flowering stage is from February to late March in FL 9B.

Pickering mango tree’s fruiting stage is from April to July in FL 9B.

Harvested the Pickering mangoes in July in FL 9B… and the little man loves the taste of Pickering mangoes!

I pruned the Pickering mango tree after harvesting all the fruits in July. Two weeks later, I saw many new growth shooting out nicely. Unfortunately, I killed it. And how did I killed it? OCD me wanted a straight row of fruit trees lined up 10 feet apart and 5 feet from the fence so I dug the tree up and relocated two feet closer to the fence. I must have disturbed and damaged the root system badly because the tree started wilting and the limbs and trunk started drying up and died. Sigh. It’s my fault. Huhuhu!

I went back to Leaph Michaelson to buy another Pickering mango to replace the dead tree. Lesson learned, I will not relocate the mango tree once I have it in the ground again. This time around, I’ll try to document the care of my new Pickering mango tree that I have learned from a few folks and hoping my mango tree will be much healthier.