Delight

Delight dragon fruit is Paul H. Thomson’s 3-S selection, a hybrid bred in San Diego County as part of the same S-series program that produced Dark Star and Purple Haze. It suits growers who collect the Thomson lineage — and anyone who’d rather plant a variety with a named breeder and a traceable California history than a mystery cutting from an online auction.

We publish only the traits we can verify, and our detailed fruit records for Delight are still being completed — so we’ll let the name and the pedigree set expectations rather than invent numbers. What can be said generally: the Thomson selections were bred and grown out under Southern California conditions with home and small-farm growers in mind, and dragon fruit from this program are typically eaten fresh and chilled, where their soft, juicy, gently sweet character shows best.

Growing Delight

Delight’s culture follows the standard dragon fruit program for California hybrids: full sun on the coast, a little afternoon shade in punishing inland heat, a sturdy trellis for its climbing habit, fast-draining soil, and frost protection on cold nights. If you already grow another Thomson variety, nothing here will surprise you.

Self-fertility hasn’t been confirmed in our records for Delight, so plan for insurance: site it near a known pollen source and hand-pollinate the night-opening flowers for the most dependable set. A self-fertile companion such as Lisa — noted in our records as a widely used universal donor — covers the risk, and the pollen category is the place to line one up.

Delight is available below as cuttings from Shulman Dragon Fruit Orchard and Wallace Ranch Dragon Fruit.