I know this is off topic, but as it's an emergency (for me at any rate), and has appeared in a previous thread (http://figs4funforum.websitetoolbox.com/post/zone-air-layering-5418136?), hopefully the moderators will let me off. So here's the background from that thread:

Gene from the Bayou - A man after my heart. I also have Eriobotrya japonica growing in my gdn - 3 in fact. And we just love the fruit of this tree, as well as our figs.......Most of the English-speaking world knows them as Japanese plum, Japanese medlar, or loquat........

.............My other problem is that my main loquat tree went 'native' on me 3 seasons ago, ie it inexplicably started to flower in Fall (which is what it does in it's native lands - SE China and Japan) instead of Spring. The blossom does not survive temperatures below 0 deg C, so of course our Winters kill any prospect of fruit in the following Spring. 

As a last resort, I tried radical pruning last year (I removed about 1/3 of the canopy), and amazingly, that stopped it flowering last Fall. I had real hopes of seeing fruit this year, but again, no sign of any blossom, so not quite sure what's going on at the moment. So I'm gonna try more radical pruning at the end of this Summer to forestall flowering nxt Fall as well, & see what happens in the following growing season. If still no fruit, I might just keep it anyway as an ornamental. It is such an attractive tree.

And guess what? After 5 'fruitless' years, it's now gone into bud again - in the Fall! Aaaarrrrggghhh!! I can't build a greenhouse around it, so apart from tieing bags around the blossom (which I doubt will work), does anybody have any better ideas how I might help that delicate blossom survive our next Winter? I really miss that fruit. 

What about Christmas lights?

Never seen one flower in the spring and I have seen hundreds. I have eight and just recently started to smell the blooms. Right on time. Cold weather never gets the blooms here but a lot of fruit can be lost in freezing weather. A lot load up with thousands of fruit and often make it through, especially in micro-climates.

From Wikipedia:

Loquats are unusual among fruit trees in that the flowers appear in the autumn or early winter, and the fruits are ripe in late winter or early spring. The flowers are 2 cm (1 in) in diameter, white, with five petals, and produced in stiff panicles of three to ten flowers. The flowers have a sweet, heady aroma that can be smelled from a distance.

@ Meghan - Wow, what a brilliant idea. Combined with a large sheet of 'fleece' (and possibly loosely tied bags as well just to add an extra layer of protection), that could just about work. Thanks a bundle chuck. Now, where did I put those lights?

Strudledog - Yes, I know that's its usual time for flowering, but I necessarily had to edit the background, and it was still far too long. I didn't want to put all of you off from reading about my predicament. In the US, I assume you are referring to latitudes that are sufficiently far south to avoid frosts/temp drops below 0 deg C. Unfortunately, we don't have that luxury here.

Now you may find this hard to believe, but over here my loquat tree flowered in the Spring, and yielded ripe fruit by mid-Summer for the first 7-8 yrs of its productive life. Somehow, it had 'synchronized' itself with our seasons/weather patterns. Then about 5 years ago (and without warning or ceremony) it failed to flower in the Spring, but flowered in the Fall of the following year instead. Result - our Winters killed the blossom, and no more fruit. 

But I have to say, I'm really excited by Meghan's idea. Can't wait to give it a go and see the result. And for anybody else who is remotely interested, I'll keep you posted.

Just wrap the branches all the way to the tips and think how pretty your yard will be this winter!

Hey Jake - please see my reply above to Strudledog, which basically covers the same ground. You may not have seen a loquat tree flower in Spring, but as I said, over here it was a regular Spring spectacle, and that delicate fragrance just wowed us. The fruit was just amazing - like 4 or 5 different fruit flavors all rolled into one, and unbelievably juicy.

Meghan - Yep, about the right time of year for that too. It will be the strangest-looking Christmas tree this side of Lapland, but who cares if the result is those delicious loquats?  

Maybe I misread what you were stating then. The "inexplicably started to flower in Fall" confused me. There is hope In my area north of Atlanta, GA some years they manage fruit through the winters that I know have seen the teens in F. and 20 F. would be -6.6 C , but it's more miss then hit here.

Not necessarily strudledog. It could be that by trying to keep it brief, I left out some essential detail that would have helped you make sense of my problem. I hope there is enough info. above now to help you make sense of it, and the reason for my appeal for help. I think Meghan's suggestion is ace.

In Atlanta's recent milder winters, what's getting the fruit are late frosts and cool springs.  Fruits can definitely survive at least -5 to -7 degrees C.

Yeah, I may have to keep those lights on for a bit longer than just the Winter. If I can get the blossom/fruit thru the Winter undamaged, avoiding the Spring frosts should be a breeze.

I hope you don't have a HOA or deed restrictions that prevent your leaving lights up past Christmas.  My neighborhood only gives us till New Year. 

Good point Meghan, but no, no such restrictions here. And in any case:
1.  these are very low output - prob. not much more than 5-6 candles in total;
2.  they'll be under cover to trap and conserve as much heat as possible, so even less light escaping;
3.  this is the back garden we're talking about, which is fairly secluded and largely out of public view, so nuisance level is minimal, and
4.  they'll only be switched on when the temp drops below 5C, which I think is erring on the cautious side. My sources tell me they will survive providing the temp doesn't drop below 0C.

So your able to cover them?  So do the tree's flower and then go dormant for winter? 

Unfortunately not. At least, not to my knowledge. Don't forget, they have very mild Winters that hardly ever fall below 0C in their native lands (SE China and Japan), so growth/fruit development continues, albeit prob. at a much slower rate. In my mother country (Cyprus), loquats are among the first fruits to appear for sale at the markets in Spring because of this growth during the Winter season.

No, when I speak of covering the tree, I'm not talking about anything remotely resembling, say, a completely opaque cover such as a blanket. I dunno if you have this stuff over there, but 'fleece' is a very light, thin, semi-transluscent, purpose-made fabric that allows light in and keeps the frosts out. If you google it you might get an idea of what I'm talking about. Combined with your idea of using tree lights (and possibly 'bagging' for extra measure as well), it could be just enough to save my fruit until more clement weather arrives. Well, it's worth a try.

PS It's trees btw, not tree's. No need for an apostrophe when it's just a plain plural of tree.

You might try using water pipe heating cables to keep your trees from freezing.

Some of my cherry trees have had a few blooms in the last couple of weeks.I guess that my cherry trees are confused by the unusual cool and wet summer weather this year.

You musta read my mind gr8. Last night I was thinking about additional sources of low-level heat when I remembered the demi-john heating belt we use in wine-making. I haven't seen it for a while, but if I can find it, I will definitely make use of it for this purpose. If not, Frost King comes into consideration if it's sold over here. Since Meghan's inspirational suggestion, the ideas just keep on coming.

Thanks for your contribution.

I grew up in Savannah, GA zone 8b, a hot/humid subtropical area, and we had a loquat in our front yard and one on the side of the house. My daddy planted them. He used to spit the seeds from the plums behind the boxwood hedges and then later cut back the volunteer plums that sprouted there.

I took my hubby to see one of the last shuttle lift-offs down in Cape Canaveral, FL back in early April 2010. The place where we viewed the shuttle was surrounded by loquats heavy with fruit! I pulled a handful of plums off and later planted some of those seeds. I currently have 2 surviving plants, both about 4ft tall. I am planting them in the ground this year from their containers.

I never thought about the flowering of the tree until I saw this thread. It seems like they do flower in the fall, and that would make fruit available in early spring! I researched the tree and what I turned up was that it can be grown in colder climates but it won't produce fruit. I currently am in zone 7b, just north of Atlanta, GA. and hopeful that I can get mine to fruit but that remains to be seen for a few more years. Either way, it's a lovely tree and I'm happy to have them here. Thanks for posting this thread and good luck with yours!

Hey Sophie. Thanks for sharing your experiences with this wonderful tree, even if this thread is seriously off-topic. But it's still fruit we love, right? 

I dunno whether you would regard ours as a colder climate - guess that very much depends on what you are comparing us with. But I can tell you the following from my experience:

1.  Our first loquat started flowering in April in its 7th year, so you have maybe another 2-3 years to go before you will see any bloosom/fruit.
2.  Spring flowering meant that the worst of the Winter and late frosts were in the past, so there was nothing to worry about.
3.  By mid-late July we had the most amazing ripe fruit, which we enjoyed for around 7-8 seasons until......
4.  ........disaster! No more flowers, followed in the following year by Fall flowering. I asked for help/advice at our local garden centre, and was told that there was not a whole lot I could do about this turn of events. Flowering and fruit production are apparently under the control of plant hormones, and we don't get to tell the tree when to flower!!
5.  I reasoned that if it's all down to hormones, I might be able to have a say by doing some radical pruning. The expert agreed it was worth a try, so I did some research. Apparently, this tree thrives on pruning, and up to 1/3 of the crown can be removed over 3 seasons without doing it any harm.
6.  Initially, it seemed to do the trick - no more Fall flowering. Yippeeee!!
7.  Only problem - there was no Spring flowering either. Bummer, but at least there was still a chance that it would be 're-set' to Spring flowering eventually, until.......
8.  .......it started flowering again in the last few days!! Oh no, this tree just ain't gonna budge from Fall flowering, no matter what I do. The expert was right. Even radical pruning does not re-set its biological clock.
9.  Hence this thread. I now only have one last throw of the dice - an appeal for ideas on how I might save the blossom/fruit from certain death by Winter. And it's just possible that I now have enough ideas (courtesy of forum members) to do the job. As I said, I'll update next Spring to let you all know if it worked.

PS Based on the advice in posts #8 and #10, I've just realized I could probably save myself some energy costs by only switching on when the temp. drops below 1 or 2 deg. C. So basically, lights on most evenings and overnight, and only occasionally during the day when it's cold enough. Better still.

@ Strudledog and Shah8: Sorry to 'bump' this back, but been doing some of my own research, and this would suggest that you are both being a bit optimistic if you think this fruit will survive up to -7C. Typically, the critical temps I've found fall in the range of -1.9C to -2.8C, which is a lot less forgiving than I had hoped. This quote is typical:

Loquat,

Call it Optimistic if you want, but the plants themselves will handle -7c 19.4 F without an issue. At least mine have. I can't make a general statement on any loquat. I have over a dozen young trees in 3 gal pots that saw 18 F last Thursday morning for a brief period, and did not even flinch. Those same plants have seen even  lower  teens for an extended period at a even smaller size while in 1 gal pots. The blooms and young fruit I really don't know the mark on as my own are juvenile pre-fruiting. They were started from fruit I consumed from a local tree that had to have seen teens during the fruit development. Again I say the fruit is more miss than hit here and I imagine the tree would experience damage at some point if encountering lower teens for a extended period. I am not sure where your quote is from, but I reside in the state of Georgia in the US. Not the ex-Soviet country and maybe 27 F is the mark, but I would have never seen mature fruit here if that was always the case.

The quote is from this site: www.caes.uga.edu/publications/pubDetail.cfm?pk_id=6127#loquat, and other sites give similar advice in the range given above.

We might also be at slight cross purposes here. I have no doubt the tree itself can easily survive -7C, and even lower temps still. My research says this tree will survive up to 12F (-11C), but that is not the issue. The object is to get the setting fruit thru the winter unscathed, but I get what you're saying about fruit from trees that have seen -7C, and that gives me hope that I might yet succeed with this little 'project'. Here's hoping anyway, and as I said, I'll update on the results next spring when I'll know for sure.

Addendum: Our first serious frosts are forecast for the middle of next week, when temps are predicted to drop to -4C. I'm not taking any chances - time to put the protective measures in place over the weekend.