Growing Fruit Trees in Different Zones

Every zone has it limitations for what you can and cannot grow, which can be frustrating to experimental gardeners. However, I have found a way to expand my growing zone, taking over the yards of friends and relatives who live in different zone. For instance, my parents live in Pinellas approximately a mile from the coast so they are a very mild zone 9B/10A. The downside is that they live in a subdivision and don't want to just grow tropical fruit trees for me so there is only so much I can plant in their yard. But I did manage to get them excited about a Mango tree I bought them for Christmas, and then later I snuck over some seedling Papaya trees. The Mango is the variety 'Nam Doc Mai', which I bought from Jene's Tropicals in St. Pete.  This nursery is great, for the tropical fruit garden they have multiple sizes of every conceivable fruit tree, it's awesome! This mango variety is semi-dwarf, with excellent flavor and fiberless flesh. I can't wait for this thing to produce fruit, but as you can see from the picture below, I may have a year or two (or three) to wait. The Papaya I grew from the seeds of a solo papaya I bought from the grocery store.  I had no idea that Papaya's were so easy to grow from seed, so I'm looking online for seeds for some more exotic varieties. But it really is as simple as planting the seeds from the fruit you get at the grocery store. Now that I've opened the door to growing tropical fruit it's really difficult not to check into what else might be interesting to grow. I've recently heard about Mysore raspberries which are a tropical variety of raspberry that I may need to convince my parents they need to grow, and maybe an Avocado tree tree, and a Lychee, and a .....

So my parents house covers my tropical zone, but there are crops I'd like to try that have a higher chilling requirement than my Hernando county location will accomodate. Fortunately my husband recently acquired a hunting cabin in N. Florida that sits on a couple of acres.  The property already has an established Pear tree that was loaded with fruit this year (I see pear canning in my future).  Last year I agreed to support the Arbor Day Foundation's Hazelnut Project, and am the proud owner of 6 Hazelnut seedlings. However, it would seem that my Hazelnuts are a little too far south for their comfort. Despite my best efforts, the foliage is stippled with necrotic lesions and the trees just aren't thriving. As soon as they go dormant this winter I'll plant them up at the hunting cabin which is zone 8A. I think they'll appreciate the longer dormancy and higher chilling hours. I have plans for a few other species at this location. I definitely would like to grow  an Amling Pecan, as they are a papershell that produce fruit early. I am also looking into some Apple varieties as well as I just cannot get them to succeed in Hernando, even the low chill varieties.

 I recommend this approach to gardening as it's a subtle/low pressure introduction to gardening for people in your life who do not garden currently. Just be careful to select friends or relatives who share well, I have doubts that I will get any of the Mango's from my parents tree:)