Plant Cemetery

Every botanical garden has losses underground. Ours are documented — species, dates, and the recorded cause of each one.

Since 2019, we have planted more than 500 distinct species, varieties and cultivars of fruit trees and edible plants from warm climates at the Orchard of Flavours in Luz de Tavira, Algarve, southern Portugal — Mediterranean climate, USDA hardiness zone 10b, heavy calcareous clay soil.

Most are doing well. Our current failure rate is around 10%, and every plant we have lost is recorded here, with the cause of loss stated as plainly as we can. Light frost, soil too alkaline, too much water: we have seen it all, and we write it down.

What each record contains

One row per plant, not per species. If we lost three papayas, there are three rows. Each one shows:

  • Latin name (following Plants of the World Online, the reference of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew) and common name

  • A photo of the adult tree

  • Planting date and death date, recorded to the month

  • The recorded cause of loss

  • Hardiness zone (USDA) and ideal soil, as given in the literature — so you can compare what the books say with what happened here

The list also includes plants that simply reached the end of their natural life — chayote (Sechium edule), pepino (Solanum muricatum), plants grown as annuals. They are not failures, but they were planted and they are gone, so they are here.

What the losses have in common

After seven years, three patterns are clear.

Frost kills in the first winter. Frost is our first cause of loss, and almost every plant it killed was rated for USDA zone 11 or warmer — papaya (Carica papaya), soursop (Annona muricata), noni (Morinda citrifolia), star apple (Chrysophyllum cainito). Almost none survived a first winter; the two that did, a babaco (Vasconcellea × heilbornii) and a miracle berry (Synsepalum dulcificum), went in a later cold year. The damage usually only shows between February and April, when a plant that came through the cold fails to come back into leaf. On our site, zone 10b is the real limit, and two cold winters (2020–21 and 2022–23) account for most of these rows.

Temperate species die slowly, of water. Pecan (Carya illinoinensis), nashi pear (Pyrus pyrifolia), quince (Cydonia oblonga), autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata), Chilean wineberry (Aristotelia chilensis) — species from cooler climates that people expect to be easy here — rarely die of cold. They die of heavy, wet, calcareous clay, usually in their second year.

Soil pH is a slow killer and a rare one. Alkaline soil has killed few plants, all of them species that ask for acidic ground, and it took around two years to do it. The plants that lasted longest in this list — a loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) at nearly four years, an azarole (Crataegus azarolus), a mango (Mangifera indica) — all declined slowly. A tree that is failing over three years is a tree that can often still be moved or saved.

Why we publish this

What fails on our soil is as instructive as what succeeds. Many of these species have little or no published record of cultivation in a Mediterranean climate, so a documented failure — with its dates and probable cause — is useful data for anyone planting in similar conditions. It also saves you from repeating our mistakes.

Some losses have a clear cause. Others are our best judgement. Either way, we record what we know rather than what we wish had happened.

Questions, corrections, or advice? Contact us — we answer.

See what is growing well in Our Living Collection.