I don't know that the Seedless Kishu is less cold tolerant than other mandarins, bamboo (although I see Britleaf seems to think so, ask them where they got their information from, this is news to me). Most mandarins are up there, as far as the line up for citrus cold tolerant varieties as a whole. So, we may be splitting hairs here, a degree or two. Certainly not like a lime tree, if that's what you're worried about. Of course, any of the Satsumas are very cold tolerant, and believe it or not, the Gold Nugget actually faired better with some wicked cold weather than the Satsumas for UC Riverside. I'd risk it, personally. As far as "must haves", well certainly I would consider a Cara Cara navel orange. Very sweet, sweeter than it's parent, the Washington navel, and the flesh is a very pretty pink. Looks really nice in a salad, and of course, excellent for eating out of hand. The Tarocco blood orange for sure. Might not be as pigmented as a Moro, but it's sweeter. And, if you can find a Breem Tarocco, it WILL be as pigmented. You get enough temp variation to make this a "must have" in your collection. Consider a Flame grapefruit. I don't see that they have a Cocktail (or I think it's probably the same as your 'Golden'). I happen to love my Cocktail grapefruit (although it's not a grapefruit, but a pummelo/mandarin hybrid, as most likely is the 'Golden'). I love a sweeter grapefruit, but still having the characteristics of a grapefruit, but without all the wincing. Lastly, a Meiwa kumquat is a great kumquat. Fatter, bigger and sweeter than all other kumquats. Very prolific producers, and the tree itself has a nice form. And they're very cold tolerant. I see lots of mandarins, so I think the above are good choices to round things out a bit for you. Patty S.

Hello, Shiraz! That one question is difficult to answer. Bare-rooting is best *IF* you're re-potting during the optimal time of year (Spring) *AND* if you're replacing all of the old soil with a very differently textured medium. If the tree is very, very rootbound and the old soil is compacted, some have suggested that you only remove a couple wedges of the old rootball during the first year. Then, you remove the other wedges in the second year to make the transition go more smoothly. If you're switching from the current soil to a mix that is bark-based like the 5-1-1, then you don't necessarily need to remove all the old soil. You can simply tease the roots apart around the bottom and outer sides of the rootball, rough off some soil, and then replace with the bark mix. Josh

As for the fig do a lot of research to separate the gems from the dogs. black berries are self reproducing. Plant them in a row and they will produce the second year and thinning the excessive runners can be done with a weed whacker. Kumquats have a sweet skin and the Meiwa variety has sweet flesh when ripe. Pop the whole thing in your mouth. Sweet lemons and limes are acid-less varieties of the sour fruit. They have low sugar so they taste mildly sweet. I eat them like oranges out of hand am very new at citrus growing but have over 2 decades with apple, peaches, pears, cherries, and plums. It is very important that you time the fruiting of each of your particular trees with the quality and quantity of available sunlight for the area it is planted. Trees that may not get enough sunlight from above will need to get sunlight from east and west and will need more space between them. I have only picked and eaten one citrus fruit (Cuban Shaddock) that I picked to soon. My trees are small and I have only eaten store bought citrus. I have however picked between 300-400 figs and they are much easier to grow, variety Hardy Chicago.

One of the seed sellers' stock was bought out by a third party but the name of the company was not changed. Apparently a lot what has been for sale on that site has been quite old stock. I spent quite a bit on an ounce of Delphinium virescens, Prairie Larkspur, and the seed was old and dead. I also bought a pound of Adonis aestivalis and it was all dead. I don't think I got any results from anything I bought from that company except for Heavenly Blue morning glory, although even those seeds seemed really old. They make a big deal about using mylar packaging but some species, especially those of the Ranunculaceae family, tend to have short lifespan. Really, a responsible company will list the age of each species' seed on its website. So far, the only place I've seen do that is Sheffields. I haven't ordered from that company yet because I just don't have any money at the moment. One knock against them is that they sell some rare seeds for high prices that are so old I can't see how they'll germinate, including seeds from the 1990s. Some species will last a long time, like Moth Mullein, but some others may only last six months (aster, goldenrod). However, at least they make the important effort of disclosing the age of the seed! A Western seed site that sells mainly native seeds sold me a pound of a tall native delphinium and a pound of a shorter native delphinium. I have no plants from either, although it's possible that climate difference is to blame. Nonetheless, the germination rate on the seed for the tall species was said to be around 35%. With storage it may have dropped further. They did warn me before I paid for the order about that, though, which was good business. Seed sellers really should list the approximate lifespan of each species' seed on their website, so people will know to avoid old seed from some species. This kind of transparency will give people an incentive to shop there. Some species are hard to grow so it's not always the fault of the seed seller. But, that first company I mentioned seems to be selling very old stocks, along with perhaps some cheap easily-located annuals in bulk. The issue of old dead seed isn't just a problem in the US. A UK paper published an article where it said there were problems with corn poppy and yellow rattle seed having poor viability or being completely dead. I bought corn poppy (Shirley type) from wildseedfarms and had excellent results. So, far, I can recommend Prairie Moon, Wildseedfarms, Native American Seed (seedsource), and the Irish site Seedaholic. I'm sure there are other good seed sources but I haven't tried all that many. I have had very good results from seed purchased from those four companies although I have also had some duds. The duds were probably the result of trying to grow plants in the wrong conditions, like me trying to grow Astragalus, Dalea, Ipomopsis, and Amorpha (leadplant) in heavy moist clay loam. I had plenty of success, for example, with Ipomopsis in rocky places where water would never pool after a heavy rain. Other gravel areas where water would pool killed the plants after the first year. Any place that didn't have rocky soil... the plants barely grew, if at all. The difference between the plants thriving and not growing at all, depending on the spot/soil was tremendous. It is a fairly picky plant. The ones in front of my house where the soil is full of lava rock got very big, even though it's clay and we had a record amount of rainfall this spring. Not a single plant grew in the meadows proper, even though the soil had been freshly tilled. Too much moisture I suppose. I'm not sure I got any sprouts from the two packets of Poke milkweed (it's hard to know for sure because the seedlings look like Purple milkweed I guess and I planted that as well as Spider milkweed and Sullivant's) but pretty much every other packet I bought from Prairie Moon last winter grew, although some plants were very difficult to keep going (like Turtlehead!). Packets are a good way to figure out which species really should be purchased as small plants or plugs — or which should be sown in situ or into large pots (rather than small peat cups). For instance, I had poor results growing Liatris ligulistylis in peat cups and pots, as well as in spots in the ground I transplanted them to. However, one that I moved to a 6" plastic pot rather late in the season is now thriving. Plants are sometimes very picky. Perhaps I got the right soil mix. It could also be that I used Osmocote in the pots and not with the peat cups/pots. Maybe ligulistylis won't grow without fertilization. I also bought a pound of Adonis aestivalis from the Cactus Store and, unlike the seed from the first company I mentioned, it wasn't all dead. So, I will likely be shopping from them again. I also got some Chinese columbine from them and got some plants. There is another company that was very disappointing. It put out price lists that seemed excellent but the actual prices were much higher and the stock was very poor. I had planned to get a bunch of different species from them but all of the interesting ones turned out to not be in stock. Don't get your hopes up beforehand. Verify that companies actually have things in stock. A Prairie Moon employee, though, told me that they keep their website up-to-date with stock, so for some companies this may be less of an issue. Another site listed some rare species, like Indian paintbrush species, in actual real bulk quantities but when I called them they told me it came mixed with grasses. So, in reality, you might be getting mostly grass seed. Another site has been listing Indian Paintbrush for years but it has been Out of Stock for at least the last three years, since I've been checking. Another site uses heavily doctored (Photoshop collage) photos to sell its seed mixes! I have all of the screenshots and have been planning to post an exposé because that kind of conduct is unacceptable. It's bad enough that Ebay allows so many doctored photos without a company's actual website being full of them.