Went to the nursery today and saw one Jacquemonti that might work somewhere for me. The thing is, Trudy also says she likes "black spots" on her birches. This tree is pretty much all white. I think it looks good though, but approval will be needed. aside- We went a little crazy last year planting "sticks" after the incident, including a tiny Whitespire birch and Size 5 American Hornbeam. There was a sense of imbalance with the street tree gone that had dominated the right side of the lawn. The 5 foot stick helped a little, but I'm thinking I need real trees now. It's a bit of a messy stick jungle now. Anyway, decided today to replace the decimated European Hornbeam with another one at the nursery that looked up to the job. I need the screening from the neighbors across the street who built a porch facing my front door. It gets complicated beyond that. The forest pansy took a major hit to the central leader, but still appears to be a viable tree after the broken section was pruned off. The thing is, the red leaves in June kind of blended into my brownish house, and it didn't seem to work in this prime spot as I thought. I am tempted to move it somewhere and put a jaquemonti (if approved) or some other birch there. I get a lot of resistance when talking about moving things, "just let it be..plant around it.. blah, blah", but that has a way of preventing definitive action :)

More than likely, your issue is not one of cultivar (variety) but rather one of the harvesting process. It's almost impossible to find a truly sweet (ripe) apricot in our markets here. Mostly because ripe apricots don't ship well. Hence, we should not compare store-bought fruits (usually too tart for comfort) to what you can grow on your own tree. Just about any cultivar that you can grow in your own garden will be sweet enough (or better) if allowed to ripen on the tree. And will match what you can get from Turkey. With that said, the cultivars grown in Turkey are pretty close to what we grow in California with the exception of the fact that they do grow specific cultivars selected just for drying. Turkey is, after all, the leading producer of dried apricots in the world (estimated at 80% of the worldwide market). And with their labor costs, they can come in to the US at a more than competitive price; hence why many places that used to sell California apricots are now selling "Turkish" apricots. Joe

The simple answer is yes; but the IML is probably not your best candidate for that; because, as a tree it is relatively weak compared to the rootstock (Cuban Shaddock, if it is Four Winds), and to other citrus varieties. The net effect of what you are proposing will be a Cuban Shaddock rootstock, a Meyer lemon "internode" and the final variety. It could be an interesting experiment; but I have serious doubts about the success or the wisdom of doing it. If your rootstock, below the bud union, is sufficiently tall, you might try budding or grafting directly to the rootstock.

I think chinese fan palms (livingstonia) are worth a shot because they are so easily found in stores and can survive to 15F with protection. mine have been covered in snow and made it very well, not to mention they look very tropical (some people in the carribean even use them as tall street trees for there tolerance of just about anything). You also forgot to mention the needle palm, and I think if you are really up for a challenge saw palmettos may be worth a try. I think washingtonia filibusta is the best for an east coast zone 7-8 because it has more humidity tolerance than filifera, and more cold tolerance than robusta, but a little "secret' is alot of palms are filibustas becuase robustas and filiferas are so common in california the trees do alot of cross polination, and its actually not very easy to get a pure 100 true robusta or filifera. there are other butias worth a try and other trachycarpus. Queen palms are quite cold tolerant too (I rememeber seeing a pic of one in Virginia Beach, sone 8a) but I dont think they can go much lower than 20 without some type of protection. Date palms are great, and the true date palm and creatan date palm may be the most cold tolerant. of course there are tropical like plants that can survive your area and arent palms such as soutehrn magnoais, crape myrtles, possibly live oak 9wont look as fantastic as in a zone 8 though), and also things like texas mountain laurels, agaves, many many yuccas, quite a few flwoering cacti, and bulbs that can be dug up like elelphant ears, cannas 9protected ones will come back), calla lilies (some will come back), swamp lily 9all over the southeast, ect... hope this helps.