Shortly after we moved here we planted a bunch of trees and plants. We had a huge mess of vines and weed trees to clear out, but we wanted to get started with the fruit trees as soon as possible since it can sometimes take 5 + years to see fruit. One of the things we planted was dragon fruit also known as Pitaya or Pitahaya. It is a cactus-looking plant that, in the wild, grows up the sides of jungle trees and then when it reaches the tops, it drops over the sides and starts flowering.

We planted ours on a fence so that we would be able to harvest any fruit. We have since then removed that fence, but so as to not disturb the plant, we staked it and just sort of forgot about it since it is no longer in an ideal location. Well, lo and behold, I noticed it was forming a flower!

Dragon fruit flower forming

We were really surprised, because we have not done anything for this plant and I think it could really use a better location than right in the middle of the yard. A couple of days after seeing this bloom form, I went outside to check on it at night and saw that it was in its full display.

In full glory (with a little gecko stowaway)

In this short video you can see the size of the bloom in comparison with my hand

It only blooms for one night and by the morning it was starting to fade. It is pollinated by night animals if the bees don’t get it in the early morning. We also collected a little pollen in case we see more flowers come up. It is unlikely that we will see fruit from this particular flower, but we are hoping to get more plants and cross pollinate varieties as well. Dragon fruit are some of the most beautiful fruits as well so we are looking forward to that. Until then, the flower and its awesome aroma was thrill enough.

Pitaya flower by light of the morning