Each of these branches will then develop its own head of long, sword-shaped blue-green leaves, adding wonderful elements of movement, sound and texture to any garden. On the other hand, if your climate constraints mean you will need to bring your pitaya plant indoors for the winter, you’ll want to keep it pruned to a more manageable size and make sure its container and trellis are sturdy but mobile. To make a new dragon tree from the parent plant, cut the tip off one of the stems, around 8cm long and pencil thick, and just above a node (where a leaf or stem is attached). As for tomato cages, choose one that is sturdy and four to five feet tall, such as this 54-inch galvanized steel tomato cage, also available for purchase at The Home Depot.

If you train your plant up a pole, an annual pruning just after fruit harvest can help keep your plant shaped and productive.

While rabbits and deer can also be problematic, birds pose the greatest risk for many pitahaya gardeners, since they will enjoy pecking into dragon fruits as they ripen.

Dragon fruit requires full sun, so plant it in If you want to exactly replicate my methods, you would steal a piece of dragon fruit from a fruit plate at a hotel brunch and use those seeds.On the other hand, if you have a self-fertile cultivar, you can hand-pollinate with pollen from the same plant or even the same flower.