Hi, first post on Gardenweb... TL;DR summary: You can absolutely grow outdoor in ground citrus in southern NJ, or almost any other part of the USA, even upstate MI. It just depends on how much effort you want to invest. Here's my full 2 cents: Citrus are quite content being dormant for several months of the year. They can tolerate prolonged periods (several days) at or slightly below freezing and short periods of a few hours (depending on the variety) down into the teens without much damage except for possible defoliation. The key is that the tree is healthy and fully dormant, active growing trees are much more sensitive to cold. One alternate approach to outdoor growing (as detailed by Poncirusguy) is to bring containerized citrus indoors for winter. Doing this you can either keep them growing actively (not dormant) by supplying sufficient heat and warmth. Or if you have a cool spot inside (temps in the 50's, for example) that receives filtered (not direct) sun you can overwinter them indoors in their dormant state. For outdoor growing, you also need to consider the fruit. In general the fruit will be damaged by temps below ~28F for more than a few hours. So you can either make sure to protect the trees so temps do not get that low or select varieties, such as early Satsumas, that are able to ripen their fruit before cold weather sets in. Depending on the degree of protection, you could grow pretty much any variety of citrus in ground. Alternatively, in zone 7B you should be able to grow some of the more hardy Poncirus hybrids in ground with minimal or possibly no winter protection. But, depending on your personal taste preferences, you may (or may not) like the fruit you get from the Poncirus hybrids. I know someone who has been growing Satsumas, Kumquats, Meyer Lemons, and some other Poncirus hybrids in ground in zone 5B for several years. Some of his trees are 6+ ft tall and many produce fruit. He uses extensive winter protection and supplemental winter heating. I have seen one of his Kumquats with well over 50 ripening fruit that he overwintered! Personally, I have one Satsuma in ground in my yard (zone 6B Massachusetts) and have overwintered it without using any supplemental heat. Instead I used several water barrels (taking advantage of the large heat capacity of water) to protect my tree. My tree saw a low temp of ~28F this past winter (the outside low temp was ~4F). During one stretch, the outside air temp did not get above freezing for 8-9 continuous days. Here are some pictures that might be helpful. Satsuma last Fall: Bundled up for winter (Early November). The tree is surrounded by 6-7 filled 35 gal water barrels wrapped in plastic sheeting to keep the wind out and is topped with an old full glass patio door for a roof. There are many different setups for protection that would also work... you just need to experiment a little and find what works best for your specific area. After 25" of snow in late Janurary: Uncovered this spring: ...and putting on new growth: Whether you choose outdoor (in ground), indoor active, or indoor dormant overwintering is really your personal preference. All methods will likely require some level of trial and error to determine what works best for you. Personally, I have found that maintaining my outdoor tree during the winter was much less work than my indoor trees. Once I set-up the enclosure, I just left the outdoor tree on it's own all winter. (In full disclosure, I did keep an eye on the interior air and soil temps with some remote temp probes and had an emergency heat source that was set to turn on automatically if the interior temp went below 27F) In contrast, my indoor citrus require frequent checks to see if they need water and I typically need to spray them with Horticultural oil a couple times during the winter to keep the insects (scale, white flies, mealy bugs, red citrus mites, etc...) in check. Cheers, Scott

I posted this over in the Banana forum as well, but ill post it here too since it IS a new addition. If you want to try and ID it... go for it, but I think it very well just might be a grand nain after all. IF that in fact is the case, hes comin in for the winter. I already removed the largest pup, and he did have roots of his own. ****************** Ok, A small local neighborhood nursery and gift shop had a banana plant left over from this summer's plant stock. This guy was in a "display" arrangment, in the center of a large pot, with some sweet potato vines in with him draping over the sides. I asked if they would sell it to me, and they said sure, for $20.00. So I had them dig him out and plop him in a plan old plastic nursery pot just to transport him the few blocks home. There WAS actaully a tag in with him, and it says he is a Musa Grand Nain. I would like to know if anyone can verify this, or if it might be something else like a basjoo, or cavendish. He is loaded with pups, about 5 or 6, a couple of which are fairly big, maybe approaching 2 feet. The main reason I want to know is so I can determine how I am going to handle him for the winter. If its not a basjoo or other cold hardy (corm hardy here in my zone 8) I would like to know so I can figure out how to deal with him indoors for the winter. Here are the photos: This last photo below is of one of the large pup's leaves. They have the familliar dark sploches on them, that look like a deep redish to me. Also, in one of the photos above, you can see the pseudostem is fairly red in color. I did pull away 2 of the oldest, and very small leaves which revealed the more red part of the stem. Any ideas if this is in fact a grand nain? If it isnt, then what exactly do you think it is? It sure does look ALOT like my basjoo, but its alot smaller. It was grown in a smaller container so far this whole summer as well. My basjoo is in a gigantic pot, which is probably why hes gotten real good hight. Thanks for the help!

CONGRATS on the inches and weight los, DEE MARIE and JEN! Hi Zig! Roller blading, huh? I'm going roller skating on Friday with the kids at the rink. Should be fun...yeah, right! I have been weeding, weeding, weeding my yard, and today I went to move a potted hydrangea off my patio and grabbed the edge of the pot and tugged. Well, I felt a stabbing pain in my thigh, then, my calf, then my ribcage. I stepped back, and realized there was a yellow jacket nest in the potted dirt! I ran up the deck, sweeping yellow jackets off my legs! I felt burning under my shirt and lifted my shirt up and there yellow jackets up in my shirt! I flicked them all away and went in the house. DH put ice on all the bites---about 6 total. They still hurt! But...I had my first belly dancing class tonight, so I went anyway. Holy cow! ----Used muscles I didn't even know I had! Really fun tho'. The instructor says at the end of 8 weeks (every Thursday), we'll know a short dance. I plan on taking level 2 after this, if I can, so I might be able to shake a coin belt by the end of it! Not much else happening. Continuing to go to the gym and sort of keep the calories in check! Nighty night!

Jennifer, Thanks for the seed report on SESE. About 6 or 8 weeks ago I saw the handwriting on the wall with the coming pandemic and ordered my seeds for both the 2020 and 2021 garden from them. I'm glad I did. And, see there, I am being optimistic and believing I'll survive the pandemic or I wouldn't have ordered seeds for next year. I'm glad you're seeing signs that people are being proactive, and I hate that churches may not be able to have their usual Easter-related services and activities. We have to remember that a pandemic is such an incredibly danger public health risk and daily life, as we know it, is changing a lot. I know that people are not used to quarantining, and I'd rather be out and about than stuck at home all the time, but I truly feel the time to stop going out as much as possible and to stay home as much as possible is now. The new cases in Texas are exploding now, and many of them are community-acquired, meaning that the patient had no known contact with anyone else who has been diagnosed with the disease, did not travel anywhere outside the local area and, thus, obviously became infected from someone in their local community. I expected the numbers to move pretty fast in TX once I saw the initial reports, but they're increasing probably a little more quickly than I was thinking they would. At least we are not in the same condition here yet as a few other states like Washington, California, New York, New Jersey, Florida and Louisiana. Texas was ahead of OK by only a couple of weeks in terms of COVID-19 cases spreading, so we still have a chance to react quickly here and maybe have it not get as widespread as quickly. I am not going to violate anybody's privacy here, but want to say that our family knows some people who are ill, have been tested and are awaiting their test results. It is shocking when you hear news like that, and that is especially true when it is people just like you who have been pretty careful, only going to work and back home again, and just grocery shopping or buying gasoline as needed---no travel, no going to the mall or the gym back when those still were open, no obvious crossing paths with infected people as far as they knew, etc. I think for most people in north central TX near us, the time to stay home and stay away from people probably was about 2 weeks ago, and now that they have community spread, it is almost too late. Their governor is issuing new directives and restrictions almost daily, so maybe they can halt the virus' spread. In OK, if we all start being as proactive as possible now, maybe most of us can avoid the virus as it makes its first official round through our state. OK hasn't had too many cases yet, but I've noticed that as soon as one case pops up in any given county, a second or third one is not far behind. We need to change our mindset now, if we haven't already, to avoid becoming one of those cases. I just hate this, but at least we all can retreat to our gardens and keep ourselves busy at home. I just want to add that Tim and I have one set of rules to keep track of on the south side of the river and another on the north and it is confusing. We'll want to go somewhere, so we'll say to one another "is it safe?" and then we have to figure out if that sort of place is open on the Texas side or the Oklahoma side, or both, or neither. It wears out my brain to the point that I think it is just easier to stay home. I am very concerned about small businesses all across the nation. Here in our county, one guy made a list that since has been forwarded around via various apps and FB, telling us which small businesses are still open, what their operating hours are now, whether you can call ahead and order what you need, etc. We need to remember to patronize our local, small businesses so we don't lose them from our community for good. Nancy, I am angry about all the coverups too. I have been tracking this beast since mid-January and was just beside myself with frustration from early February onward because I thought that was our nation's best chance to stop it in its tracks, and there stood all the politicians implying or even stating it was basically the flu, which it is not, and that it would go away as the weather warmed up, which also is false. The only thing I knew for sure at that point was that the government wasn't going to act in time to protect us, so we had to do everything possible to protect ourselves. I think Tim and Chris thought at first that maybe I was a little too obsessed with it, but then they got on board pretty soon thereafter as they watched it spreading across the world. One of the things I thought was heartbreaking was when Jana told me that she and Chris were going to go ahead and take the girls to the Texas Gulf Coast last week so they could make memories that the girls would have to hang on to "in case anything happened". That told me that Chris and Jana both clearly understand the front-line risks they face in their careers and know that tomorrow or next month or next year is not guaranteed for any of us. How I wish their vacation could have been just a normal vacation with the kids, not marred by fears of what comes next in this pandemic. Both of them expect to be exposed and quarantined, a concern heightened by the lack of proper PPE to keep them safe. No entity---no city, state, county, hospital, fire department, police department, nursing home, etc. has enough PPE stockpiled to deal with this crisis. Since most of it is made in China, and China has been shut down production-wise since early January, there's no quick relief in sight either. I fear for all our first responders and medical personnel. Jen, I agree that modern-day technology offers us options not available in previous times of crisis. I'm glad you're finding a way to make it work for you. Larry, I totally understand how you feel. Tim and I said we wouldn't go out and about when the virus started getting close to home, and then he took a week of vacation and we went somewhere pretty much every day, even knowing we might be exposing ourselves to infection. Sometimes being bad is fun, and I'm glad we were able to eat at a couple of our favorite restaurants in Texas before the governor shut them down at mid-week last week. We do carry wipes with us everywhere, and have hand sanitizer in our vehicle and I carry a mini-bottle of hand sanitizer in my purse. I hope we've done enough to stay safe. We didn't hear a single cough anywhere for days, and then noticed a lot more coughing in public yesterday, so I take that as a warning sign. After a quick trip to the feed store and to Lowe's today, we are officially staying home. Well, except Tim has to go to work each day and that is just unavoidable, but I'll be cleaning and disinfecting everything he touches when he comes in from work. I suppose he won't let me stand at the back door and spray him down with Lysol before he enters the house, will he? I think Tim should pack a suitcase to carry in the car just like he does before a forecasted snowstorm and should be prepared to hunker down and stay in Texas if anyone issues a stop-movement type edict while he is a work, particularly if such an edict prohibits crossing state lines. I don't know if such an edict is coming on either a statewide or national level, but if it is, he'd be in better shape if he has a suitcase full of clothing,medication and toiletries. Remember the good old days when all we had to worry about with the garden was just weather and pests? Dawn