Condo Mango Tree

Though it’s easy to maintain and help thrive, there are a few important tips to remember when it comes to caring for your Condo Mango Tree. When you first receive your new tree, unpack it immediately from the box and remove the plastic bag surrounding the shipped pot. For the first two weeks, water your Condo Mango each day, preferably during the morning hours. On the third week, gradually cut back watering to five out of seven days.

For subsequent weeks, continue to water your Condo Mango when the soil appears dry. During the summer months, this could be each day, but during the winter months, once or twice a week should suffice.

You’ll also need to acclimate your plant to the outdoors. Place it in a shady area for the first couple of days, then gradually move it to an area with more sun each day. After one week, move it to its permanent spot in full sun for the summer.

Note: This product grows best in well-draining soil. When you receive your plant, you may notice small, white beads or rocks in the soil - this medium is added to increase drainage and keep your plant happy and healthy! 

Container Growth and Transplanting:
As your Condo Mango Tree grows, it will need to be moved to a large pot every 2 or 3 years, until it maxes out to around a 30-gallon pot.

Repotting: For starters, you’ll need a good, fast-draining and gritty soil mix. You can make your own, using equal parts Pine Bark Fines, Turface and granite grit (or perlite), or you can use a commercially-prepared mix. You can also add a small amount of slow-release fertilizer to the mix.

You may use a clay or plastic pot, but you should ensure the pot you use has plenty of holes in the bottom for drainage. Use a pot that’s one a size larger than your current pot size.

Line the bottom of your pot with loose stones and add potting mix until the pot is halfway full, wetting the mix as you go.

Then, remove your plant carefully from its current pot, keeping the root ball intact. Do not pull it out by the trunk, as this may damage the tap root. If its roots are starting to circle around the outside where they met the pot, gently loosen the ends to encourage them to grow out into your new soil.

Hold the plant in the middle of the pot and fill in around the plant so that the top of the soil, around the base of the tree, is still visible. Tamp the soil gently and water until the water drains out of the bottom of the pot.

Watering: The smaller the pot, the more frequent the watering. Do take any rainfall into consideration in your watering schedule, but water your plant every two or three days in the summer and cut back to once every week or two during the winter. Keep the potting mix moist but not wet and allow the top couple of inches of soil dry out before watering again.

Fertilizer: A container-grown plant does not have access to ground nutrients, so you will need to feed it. Use a fertilizer that’s low in nitrogen, such as a slow release 6-6-2. You can apply it in a slow-release form during spring and mid-summer.

Also, feed your Condo Mango only when the tree is in active growth (avoid feeding in winter). In the summer, you can also apply a foliar spray with micro-nutrients, which include magnesium, zinc and manganese. Chelated Iron may be beneficial as well.

Pruning: Your tree has already had a several pruning sessions before it arrives to your door, including a tip pruning of the terminal bud to encourage lateral growth. However, it will need regular pruning its whole life, both for manageable size and to promote fruiting.

A major key to pruning? Prune the new shoots when they reach about 20 inches. You should do this several times during its first growing season, and two to three times during the next couple of growing seasons. After that, you will need to tip prune every year after fruiting, during mid-summer. Simply cut off the growing tips of all the branches–branches in the center of the tree, growing upright, should be cut back farther than branches growing horizontally on the tree. After four to five years, the tree should be about 6 to 8 feet tall and wide in a pot.

When the tree is five years old, you should start removing the thick, woody branches growing upright in the middle of the tree altogether, and a small handsaw for this task should suffice. Hold the branch upright until the cut is complete so that the end is not splintered and torn. Leave the smaller branches in the tree center, however.

And remember to prune annually after harvesting during mid-summer.

Bringing Indoors for the Winter:
Condo Mangoes are not hardy, so they can be damaged when temperatures drop below 40 degrees. Go ahead and bring in your plant during the chillier months of the fall season. You’ll need a place indoors with adequate sunlight (the more, the better), so a South-facing bank of windows would be good, or a heated greenhouse would also suffice.

Cut back watering to once every week or two, and stop fertilizing your Condo Mango Tree. Moving your pot indoors is easier if you have a dolly, or if your pot sits on a platform with castors. The process will be easier on your plant if you continue to put it outside in the middle of the day for several days, until leaving it permanently indoors for the winter.

Pollination: Though your Condo Mango Tree is self-pollinating, pollen is usually transferred by insects of the wind. Your Mango will flower in March and April, maybe even before you can bring it outside. To help ensure plenty of fruit, you can shake the tree to disperse pollen, or use a paintbrush to gently transfer pollen from flower to flower.

Growing Your Mango in the Ground:
Mangoes like a lot of sun and heat, so keep this mind when you select a planting area. The best area to plant will often be on the South or East side of your house. Mangoes also require good drainage and will need at least 8 to 10 feet of space from other plants in your garden to accommodate your tree’s width.

Luckily, its roots are not prone to damage from pavement or pipes outside its drip line, so you can plant 8 to 10 feet from pavement or a pipeline, or 12 feet from a structure.

Soil: Providing it has good drainage, your Mango isn’t finicky when it comes to soil. If your soil is too rich, your tree will grow quickly but may be reluctant to flower and fruit. The Condo Mango prefers loose, sandy soil and performs well in sand, gravel and even oolite limestone. If you have heavy and wet clay soil, you will need to amend it substantially with decomposed leaves, grit, or fine bark and sand. If you have especially wet soil, you may want to create a raised bed for your Condo Mango.

Ground Planting:
Dig your hole 2 to 3 times as wide and twice as deep as the plant’s shipped container. Amend your soil first, if needed. Fill in the bottom of your hole with the removed soil so that when you place the container on it, the top of the container is at ground level. Do not add fertilizer to your soil at this time.

Remove the plant gently from the container, ensuring that you keep the root ball intact. You may cut the sides of the nursery pot to make removing the plant easier, if needed. If the roots are starting to grow around the edges of the pot, however, gently loosen them so they will grow out into the new soil.

Hold your Condo Mango in place and back fill your hole around it. Be sure the top of the soil around the base of the tree is still visible when you’ve completed back filling. Use any extra soil to make a small 3 to 4-inch berm in a circle, around 2 feet from the tree’s trunk. This process will help hold water near the roots for the first few waterings.

From there, tamp the soil gently and mulch with 2 to 3 inches of organic material to buffer soil temperature, conserve moisture and reduce weeds. Finally, apply 2 to 3 inches of organic mulch around the base of the tree to a distance of approximately 3 feet. Leave at least 6 inches from the trunk, ensuring that no mulch is touching the tree. Organic mulch will supply nitrogen as it decomposes, suppress weeds, retain moisture and help prevent damage from string trimmers.

Watering: During the initial 10 days after planting, water your Condo Mango every other day, then gradually reduce frequency. After six weeks, you should be watering twice a week (in the summer) while the plant is in active growth. And if you have rain, of course, you can reduce your watering. During winter, your Condo Mango will need very little watering, and one watering every couple of weeks should suffice, unless you have enough rain to fill the tree’s needs.

The Mango needs consistently moist (but not wet) soil to produce high-quality fruit, so it should receive water regularly during the spring and early summer, whether that water is from rain or from your hose. Once the tree is established (~two years after planting), a weekly watering should be adequate during the growing season. You should not need to water your Condo Mango in winter unless there is a prolonged drought.