Growing A Mango Tree

Some of you who read my blog may think I like gardening.  I love other peoples gardens.  I love to look at beautiful flowers and plantings, but the actual process of gardening for myself is low on my list of favorite things to do.  I don't like to sweat or get my hands dirty.   I plant plants that take care of themselves.  However, I do love to propagate plants.  Whenever I prune or trim, it is very difficult for me to throw away the stems.  Many of my plants have started out as a stick or small starter plant.  That brings me to my story for today.  Last Mother's Day, my oldest daughter stopped by in the late afternoon with her family.  They had spent the early part of the day with my son in laws mother.  When they came into the house, they brought some trash from the car that needed to go into the garbage.  They had an overripe mango that I separated out to go into the compost.  As I looked at the fruit, I wondered if I could start a plant from the seed.  I took off the fleshy part and put it in the compost.  Then I took the large flat pit and tried to break it open.  It was really tough and I couldn't do it.  I thought if I planted it, as is, it would probably never germinate or it would rot.  I decided to wrap it in wet paper towels and put it in a plastic baggie.

I put this bag in a dark place for about two weeks or more.

I put the mango pit wrapped in moist toweling away for several weeks, I can't remember exactly how long.  I would check it once in a while to make sure the toweling was damp and look for sprouting.  One day I noticed a small sprout peeking out of the pit.

The pit has softened up and this sprout appeared.

This really is a sprout.  It looks kind of creepy.  It looks like a hairy creature with a leg sticking up.

Inside the pit was a bean type seed starting to sprout.

The mango pit had softened up, and I could remove the seed very easily.  There was a clear covering around the bean.  I tossed the casing, covering and planted the seed.

The pit opened like a clam shell.

I found an old hanging pot, covered the seed with soil and set the planted seed outside.  I pretty much forgot about it.  It was two months ago that I put the mango pit into the plastic bag.  Now it looks like this. 

It will probably turn into a nice house plant for a while.  We can't grow mango trees outside in Wisconsin because the winters are too harsh.  Another problem I see is that they can grow to fifty feet tall  plus who knows what kind of mutant fruit it may produce.  It was fun to see the propagating process and will be interesting to see how big it gets before winter.