Strawberry Guava for Las Vegas?

Q. I am interested in growing strawberry guava in Southwest Las Vegas and wish to know if these are good choices. Can you tell me what fruit and evergreen tree varieties have the best chance to survive in our desert?

Strawberry guava is a guava with red fruit. It is cold or winter tender and should only be grown on the east side of a house or tall wall. The soil MUST be amended with compost.  It requires a lot of water (mesic) and can grow over ten feet tall. Here it is growing at our farm in the Philippines where it is warmer. Strawberry guava doesn't taste like strawberries.

A. Our desert can be a place to grow strawberry guava except for our cold winters and occasional snowfall. The fruit grows on new growth from a small tree, 10 to 20 feet tall. If they are kept warm or from freezing and planted in a part of the landscape that gets afternoon shade, then strawberry guava will work here. 

During the very low winters of 1989 to 1990 it got from 10 to 15F but those are 25-to-50-year lows. So short term, temperatures of 25F or below is expected occasionally. Fully grown, they will survive freezing temperatures to about 25F for short periods of time.

How to Grow It Here

Its not easy or cheap. My suggestion, if you plan to grow them here, is to pick a non-windy place (windy locations make temperatures colder in my opinion) in your landscape. This protected location should get at least six hours of direct sunlight in the morning. Protect them from the wind with a constructed wind barrier. Not a solid wall. Solid walls create “dust devils”. Pick a location that is either on the east side or north side of a building or wall, not hotter locations found on the west or south sides.  Plant them at least five feet from a wall or building.

Make sure the planting hole is about 3 to 4 feet wide and dug as deep as the roots. Amend the soil with compost or use composted soil when planting. Make sure the soil is wet, not dry. Plant in a hurry. Cover the soil with a 3-to-4-inch layer of wood chips when finished. Stake the tree after planting. Protect it from rabbits or other vermin if they are seen. Applied water should wet the soil to 18 inches deep to at least half the area under the tree canopy as it gets bigger.

Avoid planting seeded types but instead pick pink or red varieties like ‘Homestead’, ‘Barbie Pink’, ‘Hong Kong Pink’, ‘Blitch’ and varieties recommended by the University of Florida that have proven successful there. Green varieties are picked before they are ripe and red or pink varieties are picked after they ripen. Guava is a climacteric fruit so it will ripen further after the fruit is hard but near ripe.