I've sent you mail with my mailing info. I'd really like to have some. Thanks. Margaret

Jolana, I agree -- it sure looks like it's made of plastic, The succulents they sell at Hobby Lobby look so real I'm tempted to buy some and be done with trying to grow some of the more exotic looking ones. Incidentally a beautiful and hardy (down to 25) succulent that is nicely colored and grows fairly large is Echeveria 'Fred Ives'. Echeveria/Graptopetalum' Fred Ives' Also I bought a pretty one off the sale tables at Lowes which has been hardy so far this winter. It has thick leaves with red lines running through it. Mara would know what it is.

Your trees have the potential to grow much bigger and faster. I planted sweetlee tangerine seeds 3 years ago. The results. 4 months old and out for the summer In for fall in aluminum foil lined bucket lights. Out grew buckets and into the grow box. I grew beet greens to warm the floor of the citrus level to 80F to promote root growth. 1 year old tree gets fresh air sucked through its root to fresh up the oxygen and prevent root rotting slug forming in the bottom of the container. outside in the greenhouse here in Cincinnati micro zone 6b. 2.6 year old tree provided rootstock and grafting scion material. The first 3 feet of trunk will be grafted with New Zealand lemonade buds and the sweetlee mature twigs are currently grafting to Kuharske Citrange and rooting for own roots trees. Give your tree lots of light, feed it well, followed up with root growing room.

Several decades ago, I hybridized Poncirus trifoliata and Clementine mandarin using Poncirus as the pollen parent as Clementine is 100 % monoembryonic when used as the seed parent. The only difficulty was the timing of flowering of the 2 parents. Some of the flowers on the progeny were misshapen and not capable of setting fruit. A few of the hybrids were vigorous and fruited in a solar greenhouse without supplemental heat in southeastern Pennsylvania. These trees were planted directly in the soil with the perimeter of the greenhouse base insulated 4' deep using panels of Styrofoam insulation. One of the trees fruited with Clementine-like fruit, deep orange, seedless, not bitter, but tart, about 2 inches in diameter. Regrettably, I discontinued covering the greenhouse and lost the trees to winter cold. I had previously sent 2 scions to an amateur citrus breeder in Tifton, GA. He was an elderly gentleman at that time and they may not have been further propagated. These trees began flowering and fruiting at 5-6 years of age. I did not fertilize these plants and did no pruning as flowering began on the most distal branches, especially on the longer upper branches beginning to bend downwards.