Has anyone tried growing a lychee tree in Melbourne?

MaryJane starts with ...
I am really interested in growing a lychee tree but heard that conditions weren't right in Melbourne. Haven't been able to find much information on any successes and very limited information on attempts.

MaryJane says...
So I spoke to someone at the Laverton Markets today who was selling lychee trees. He said the conditions for growing lychees in Melbourne are pretty good and people have already started doing it. Lychees require hot summers and cold winters to bear fruit. So in parts of VietNam where it is constantly hot it is not able to produce fruits only up in China where the temperature is cooler is it able to produce fruit. Anyway I will hopefully purchase the plant in the next couple of weeks and let you know if it works :) he also said that it is hardier than you think. Not as fragile as what the forums are saying.

Jason says...
Hardiness is almost never a problem when trying to grow these things in Victoria.

The problem is always lack of average heat and mostly lack of overnight heat. Other than the extremity of Mildura there's not enough natural heat in Victoria to grow Lychees in a time frame within a human lifespan. Luckily Melbourne is so large it no longer has a natural climate, it even generates its own storms and rain. Pretty amazing. It's some three-four degrees hotter day and night than its supposed to be. Those four degrees are enough to move you from a classic warm temperate climate into pretty much a sub tropical winter. The only other problem is the rainfall is no good during by he growing season, again Melbourne has a ton of artificial rain (hoses). But still as of now even in Melbourne Lychees will be slow but I think possible *just*.

However its still getting warmer every year both by climate change and the city growing.