Red Navels were sold in Houston at Home Depot before the state supplied citrus budwood became mandatory about ten yrs ago. They were grown by Crockett Nursery (now defunct) in Harlingen, Tx. Dr. Julian Sauls is a professor of horticulture at the Texas A&M Citrus Center and an Agriculture Extension Agent and he referred to them as red navels not Cara Caras. And I believe they may be different. They seem to be darker and some years get a lot more of a berry flavor. They can also become drier. When they are in a good year, they are the best of my 25+ varieties. I also have have Moro, Sanguinelli, Torroco, and a "blood Jaffa". O.K., maybe red tinged, Jaffa. I got it from Crockett also. And I have a reference to them. I like the red navels because their pigment is lycopene and they start out like grapefruit, fully colored and fade as they hang on the tree. Blood oranges mostly don't get very red in our climate because color is induced by non interrupted cold nights.

Hey guys don't fret too much about the occasional cool day and cold night. In Harlingen, TX, where the normal high and low for January is 68/49, I have seen green Malayans with about 5-7 ft. of wood and about 18ft. tall overall height and one last summer had a pretty big coconut about eight inches long growing on it! In Brownsville, I have seen 30ft. tall overall height Mexican Talls, and on South Padre Island, there is a Mexican Tall that the last time I was there in December, it had 47 coconuts total on it! Most were small to medium size, but about 4 or 5 of them were in the 8-9 inch range and will probably be about 10 inches by the time they ripen. Anyway, the Valley has some cool days, with highs in the upper 40's to lower 50's occasionally, and some nights in the 30's occasionally, and the coconut palms still grow and even fruit there. The problem is when you have prolonged periods of about 5 days or more when the temps are really cool, as is often the case this time of year in Southern California, and also when you have a hard freeze. Coconut palms can take the occasional cool day or two and even the occasional light freeze, but they can't take prolonged cool weather or hard freezes below about 27F, especially when they are young. P.S. I will try to get my photos of the above palms on to a disc this week so I can email them to any of you who might be interested.

The first house my first husband and I lived in had huge fig trees. This was down near Harlingen, TX. I have no idea what type they were. But they were has high as the house and I could not have put my arms around one. There were 6 of them. I could not find enough people for all that fruit. It kept falling on the ground, rotting and fermenting. The wasps were in heaven over all that fruit. I was pregnant, so needless to say, I have never eaten another fig. LOL! These were old trees in 1960.

you already posted this request yesterday