How big do mango trees grow?
Left alone, a mango (Mangifera indica) can reach 25 m with a dense, rounded crown, according to PlantNET. That's a general botanical figure. We couldn't find a reliable one for home gardens, where regular pruning is what keeps a tree at a size you can manage and pick.
Mangoes are native to the Indo-Burma region and flower in spring. In NSW they're mostly grown on the coastal lowlands and rarely go wild.
When do I prune a mango?
Young tree, once it passes a metre
Gardening Australia says to make the first prune once the main stem is beyond a metre high. That encourages side branches and a vase shape that stays easy to pick.
Any time of year
Dead wood and branches that cross and rub can come out whenever you spot them.
Straight after harvest
This is the big one. Reduce stems by about 30cm to hold the tree at a safe picking height. Gardening Australia says it also removes the most concentrated sources of disease.
Only what you can reach from the ground
Secateurs and loppers for anything within reach while you're standing on the ground. Don't take a ladder into a mango's crown; a tree that's already over the roofline is a job for an arborist.
When is a mango arborist work?
When it's too tall to pick, hangs over the roof or the neighbour's yard, or needs a big reduction after years without pruning. A proper reduction shortens limbs back to a suitable branch rather than cutting them to stubs: the pruning standard, AS 4373-2007, lists lopping and topping as unacceptable practices. Our lopping vs pruning guide explains the difference.
Fruit trees have their own page, fruit tree pruning, and if the tree has to go, tree removal covers what a good quote includes. On roots, we found nothing reliable for mangoes, so we won't guess.
Storms, cyclones and fruit over the fence
Mangoes hold up well in a blow. After Cyclone Yasi, Greening Australia's Townsville report listed mango among the highly cyclone resistant species, often still upright with most of its foliage after a Category 4 event.
Dropped fruit is the more common complaint. In NSW, Legal Aid says the Land and Environment Court generally won't make an order about a tree that only drops leaves, flowers, seeds or fruit, so a neighbour's mango shedding fruit over the fence is mostly something to talk through.
Do I need a permit for a big mango?
Possibly. Schedule 2 of Brisbane's Natural Assets Local Law, as consolidated in 2013, lists mango trees with a trunk 80 cm or more across, and a listed tree counts as a significant landscape tree in set cases. Other councils use other tests, so check yours on our tree removal permits page before a heavy prune or a removal.
Mango trees: what to do next
Prune every year straight after harvest and you'll rarely need anyone else. If a mango is already too big to pick, we'd get an arborist to quote a proper reduction, and in Brisbane we'd measure the trunk and ask the council first if it's anywhere near the 80 cm mark.
Want an arborist to look at it?
Tell us the job and your postcode, and a local arborist calls you to talk it through.