One of Virginia's childhood memories (and actually a memory I have from our early married days) is of visiting her grandparents in San Diego and having her grandfather make his special whole wheat pancakes. The syrup of choice, if available, was always strawberry guava juice (sort of a puree) from the trees in the back yard. Her parents grew some of those trees from cuttings in their yard in Oxnard, and the tradition continued.
Our climate in Cabot included winters that were too cold for the guava trees, but when we moved to Houston in 1990 we pretty much entered the tropics, and the climate was perfect for them. VJ's dad (Lyle) brought some cuttings on one of their early visits and planted 5 along our west fence in the back yard. Two died and one struggled, but two of them did really well, and we harvested many pounds of strawberry guava's almost every year.
Not long after we moved here in January, 2004, we visited VJ's folks' place in Carlsbad, where cuttings had started new guava trees several years prior. We pulled up some seedlings and brought them north to Antioch. Since our winters have been pretty mild, two have survived, and this afternoon we transplanted the second one from a large pot into the ground. The one that is already in the ground even has what look to be small guavas... we'll see.
Who knows, in a couple of more years we may be able to invite you over for whole wheat pancakes... with guava juice.
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