No new citrus, although I was just at homedepot and they had 1 gallon lime, lemon, and mandarin trees on sale for $10. Its a good thing I already have those are I would have bought them. I did successfully germinate a mango and avocado and they are both about 8" tall and loving the greenhouse. I also rooted a pineapple crown, not to impressive since I read that they root about as easy as weeds grow in the yard. Hopefully it will fruit one day.

Not to get of topic, but what is the absolute lowest nighttime temps you feel comfortable leaving you trees out in. We are starting to have lower 50's and upper 40's pretty consistent now. They will be going into my heated greenhouse so I can give them warmer nighttime temps, I just dont want to pay for the heat just yet.

Mksmth:

I would think seriously about bringing them in at night or for good, if it becomes to much work to carry them back out into the warm sun after cold nights..
Most plants stop actively growing when consistent temps drop below 55, especially if you are into the 40's..That would concern me with potted trees...

Once this happens, I put them in my greenhouse and let them do their thing, until about December when nite temps average into the low thirties or lower in case my space heater accidently shuts down while I am sleeping.....

Will the temps in the greenhouse be warmer than outdoor temps at night without heat for a while?

I saw those same trees for ten dollars....I even wanted to buy them, but did exert seld contro....lol

Mike

I added a Eustis limequat, Palestine Sweet Lime, Tango Mandarin and a Thai Lime tree to my collection this year.

I am comfortable leaving my trees outside until the Louisville weather forecast predicts overnight lows below 40. Since we live a good ways outside the city, we don't get city heat and our overnight lows are always 5 degrees or so lower than those at the airport. This puts the temp around 35 when I decide that they need to come in.

Even a light frost does not concern me if the trees have had a couple of weeks of cool temps to get used to the idea.

Thanks Mike
thats kind of what I was thinking. I have 2 heaters on different circuits. One is enough to heat it how I want but I feel better having a back up set just a bit lower to make sure all stays warm.

The lowest low for the next 10 days is supposed to be about 41 so I guess Ill go ahead and move them in.

displacer you have more guts than I do, LOL. Here in Oklahoma the weathermen a notoriously wrong and a forecasted 35 can turn out to be 30 with 20 mile per hour winds. That would be my luck.

I do plan to buy order a oroblanco and a blood orange next spring.

My courage is less intestinal fortitude and more blase indifference. In the past I've left them out thinking it would be 40 overnight, only to come outside in the morning and find a thick layer of frost on my car (and on the trees' leaves). Then I drive by the bank LED board and see a current temp of 30 and go D'OH!

The trees have never been harmed by this so I care less now. Someday I will go too far and they will take frostbite, but this inadvertent experimentation has made me less skittish when it comes to the cold. Cold temps make the trees stock up on carbohydrates, anyway, which I think helps see them through the winter in the dim light indoors.

Mike, you always come up with interesting topics. :)

I think you know the only two nurseries I buy citrus from are Briteleaf and Harris. Since the ban began, what 4-6 yrs??? I haven't brought in any trees...

However, while browsing Ebay I came across a baby, seedling Kumquat..Also, I was telling my brother about Fl's ban.. He was persistent finding a citrus for my b-day, lol, so he found a small citrus from, 'drum roll,' Logees!! A Medica Turunji. Most of its leaves dropped. Already! The Kumquat, which was purchased months before is full.

I pray Fl's ban ends soon.

PS. I assume you're talking about buying citrus, not other plants, right? lol. Toni

I added a Dancy and Clementine and a Trovita. If my son is up to it they will all be planted in the ground next month.

I added a Dancy also, and an Improved Meyer lemon,and 2 Oro blanco grapefruit trees.
Andrew

I started with nothing this year. Now I have a meyer lemon, oroblanco, rio red, owari, okishu, clementine, moro blood, minneola, and wekiwa.

I guess I went a little overboard.

I've added a few new ones to the ever expanding collection this year. In March I picked up a Satsuma at the Philadelphia Flower Show and hauled it all the way home on the train (I'm in Raleigh NC). At our local plant swap I found a Citrangequat which will eventually be planted in the ground when I get brave enough or the larger and more tender citrus get even bigger and take up all my winter storage space. Recently I found two tangerines (Dancy and Clementine) at the local big box store on sale for like $5 a tree. Its a good thing they are small and skinny otherwise they wouldn't fit into the mix.

I would have Calamondin for the flower smell and the look of the plant covered in blooms and fruit - I prefer their frangrance over all others. I eat the fruit while out working the plants but they are harshly sour so I can see where some people would not like them (of course I have been known to make marmalade from Trifoliate Orange also which is a mighty harsh resinous flavor).

Triangle John,
Me too! You are the only other person I know who has made trifoliate marmalade. I eat it too. How about you? This is beginning to sound like a game of dare.

This year the new additions are Kishu and Vaniglia Sanguigno. The first is a small seedless mandarin from Logee's whose plants I like. I first began with Merry Gardens (long gone) in the 60s which had low prices and good plants. The owner was a female relative of Logee's owners. Don't quite know the genealogy. This plant has done well but I always transplant them shortly after I get them under the assumption that a good nursery will try to keep the plant in a smallish pot for shipping purposes and I get a good look at the roots in case it's not a good nursery.
The Vainiglia Sanguigno is a sweet blood orange. The sweet oranges are reputed to be insipid but this is not supposed to be and is said to taste like vanilla. I just had to find out. This I got from Edible Landdscaping. Found it by googling the VS name. When I called the receptionist said they didn't have it. I explained about the googling and she asked someone else who said that they did have it only in the quart size. Suits me. The small sizes are less expensive. Again the plant has done well.

Would like to get the Sanbokan Lemon (saw it at Woodlanders whom I have not dealt with) and maybe Cocktail Grapefruit and maybe Calamondin but I really think that I should not get any of these. There is no more room at the inn.

Mike,
Regarding the Bearss lime: It is my favorite so far. I like it much better than the Meyer lemon. Sorry.

As to keeping the citrus outside in cold temps., I bring it in if night temps. are predicted to be 32 degrees or lower. Yes, I am a risk taker but the citrus are near a 3 story house (the first 2 stories brick), protected on the North by a brick retaining wall and on the West and South by tall trees. This works for me. The Bearss lime is at least 15 years old.

Cath

Cath, are you talking about Woodlanders located in SC?
I went to Gardenwatchdog to check Woodlanders feedback.
32 Positives, 2 Neutrals, 7 Negatives.
Not bad. Toni

Toni,
Yes, I think so.

Also I may have misled about bringing plants in for the Winter. I bring them in about the end of the first week in October. If they predict 32 degrees or colder I would bring in the citrus and tropicals earlier but then it is a mad rush which I hate. It's better to have a schedule. There was only one year in the past about 30 that it frosted before then in October. And even then nothing perished.

Cath

Cath41 - I've found that if you pick Poncirus fruit when you first notice them dropping off the tree and then store them in the vegetable bin at the bottom of the fridge for about a month or more they get much better flavor. They still have some of that resin just under the rind but not as bad as fresh picked. My new house has a massive Poncirus tree that gets loaded with fruit about this time of year - Lucky me!

My problem - if you wanna call it that - is that my citrus and tropical fruit collection just won't die. Not that I'm trying to kill them. Each year I build a temporary hoophouse out in the yard and heat it with a small electric heater (kerosene on the really cold nights). Those one gallon cuties with a few fruit hanging on them were precious way back when but now they're head high and about as wide - my hoophouse just seem to get bigger and bigger each year. At some point I either have to build a real greenhouse or get rid of trees. At last count I have 22 citrus trees not to mention guavas, sapotes and humongous tree ferns that seem to grow a foot each year!

I'm close enough to drive up to Edible Landscaping in VA. I fear things are only gonna get worse.

Trianglejohn,

Thanks on the tip about the Poncirus trifoliata. Anything that would reduce that resin, even a little, is welcome news.
Oh do I hear you on the available space and growing plants but that is what I love about them, eating your cake and having it too. There are few things that you can both keep and give away.

Toni,

Somewhere you asked about walkout basements and I forgot to answer. Walkout basements are like a regular basement on one side but on the opposite side you can open a door and walk out at ground level. I am not surprised that you are not familiar with them since you live in Illinois. I grew up there - a lot of flat land.

Cath

I am new to citrus growing. I started out container growing fruit trees because of my addiction to mangoes and not having enough yard space to put everything in the ground. A few weeks ago I got 5 new pets: ruby red grapefruit and navel orange trees about 3-1/2 feet tall each; and a meyer lemon, pink lemonade and a key lime tree that are a bit smaller. The key lime is flowering already! I am thinking it must have been about to flower when I got it but I didn't notice. I now have lots of citrus reading to do....in between grooming my garden. Looking forward to picking everyone's brain :)

New for this year, just budded today, clementine de Nules, Valentine pommelo hybrid, and Marsh grapefruit. New last year, Bream tarocco blood orange, pomona sweet lemon, cocktail grapefruit, and Nordman seedless kumquat. All are from California Citrus budwood program thru Texas A&M.

Here is a link that might be useful: mrtexas

"The Vainiglia Sanguigno is a sweet blood orange. The sweet oranges are reputed to be insipid but this is not supposed to be and is said to taste like vanilla. I just had to find out."

You will not like this one. When it is described as acidless that is what it is, absolutely no citrus flavor at all. I had 5 gallons of fruit after waiting for 5 years on my variety tree and have eaten the fruit. It is the worst tasting insipid orange I have every tasted. Iagree, it tastes like vanilla. After I got over it not tasting like an orange I was able to drink the juice. It got topworked ASAP to tarocco blood orange, but alas, tarocco is too late for me and it will get topworked once again.

Here is a link that might be useful: mrtexas

"I've found that if you pick Poncirus fruit when you first notice them dropping off the tree and then store them in the vegetable bin at the bottom of the fridge for about a month or more they get much better flavor. They still have some of that resin just under the rind but not as bad as fresh picked. My new house has a massive Poncirus tree that gets loaded with fruit about this time of year - Lucky me!"

Lucky you if you didn't try to eat the fruit which is the worst tasting citrus I have ever tried to eat. I'd rather cut my arm with a dull razer blade. The only way to improve the fruit is by throwing it out of reach.

Here is a link that might be useful: mrtexas

This is my third year with citrus fever. For the first two years I grew a large calamondin. Unfortunetely, poor soil killed it last winter. So this year I went crazy.

March: I got a meyer lemon and a tahiti orange (an acidless sour mandarin)from logees. And an Oroblanco from FW.

May - I got a ponderosa for my birthday, also from FW.

July - I ordered a key lime and a variegated eureka lemon from a cheap site I heard about on here. The eureka was originally going to be a gift for someone else.. but I fell in love with the fushia colored new growth and the lovely lemony scent the leaves gave off. So I kept it, lol.

August - I ordered a calamondin from the same site, as I misses the constant flowering of my old calamondin. Then while wandering around a Lowes I found a whole stack of citrus trees. I bought 4 washington navels and 2 meyer lemons.

September: The eureka and ponderosa were both blown clean out of their pots and onto the ground during a windstorm, not once but TWICE in the same day. They've been losing leaves like crazy since. The roots look pretty bad, might be dead. So I may end up replacing those two before winter comes.

Before June, I had no citrus trees, but a trip to Home Depot changed that, it started me off with two small Meyer Lemon trees on sale for 50% off.

Within a few days, I made a trip to Walmart and made a rare visit to the garden center, they had just had a delivery of citrus trees so I took a look. I shouldn't have done it, I brought home 6 citrus trees! :)

My citrus trees:

Meyer Lemon (x2)

Bearss Lime - (x2) Tree #1 had two limes when I brought it home, they were the best limes I've ever tasted! Tree #2 blossomed about 6 weeks ago and I have two limes growing now. Love these trees!

Valencia Orange

Ruby Red Grapefruit

Eureka Lemon- a very fast grower

W. Murcott Mandarin

All are healthy, and are in containers, on my patio.

It's been a while since I have been on here but jsut to add to the conversation. I got a few trees and not one ahs died yet lol. Thanks Mike and Al, but I started out with a banana in March, then a valencia orange, followed by a moro blood orange(not doing the best though, a meyers lime and key lime, another Meyer Lemon from Home Depot, which had three little Lemons to start with and now has about 30 (Soon to be less) and most recently a washington Navel orange. So in all, I believe that is seven :)

I finally decided to search out the last few mandarins on my wish-list:

* Ponkan Mandarin (which I've heard rated very high, but supposedly not while fruiting here in hot-arid Central Valley),
* The three TDE "Gold" sisters (Shasta, Tahoe, Yosemite)
* A couple Nules de Clementine "aka Clemenules"
* A couple Page
* A couple Tangos

That's 45 citrus now if the ones that are still recovering from our "freeze" last year do make it through this winter. All but three of my citrus are oranges and mandarins.

I started taking individual photos yesterday to track growth -- it takes forever to do so! Of course I was caring for them at the same time, removing stake ties to some, adding others, labeling, updating my database, etc.

Now that 100F heat has died down, the white moths (Citrus Leaf Miner) are everywhere ruining all my beautiful fresh growth!

Cath, back to basements..lol.. I know what you mean now, but it's been many moons since seeing a walk out basement.
Growing up in Chicago, 'before my parents bought a house,'walk outs were common, especially in older appartment buildings, but now that we're in the burbs, 21 yrs, they're extinct. lol
In fact, the guy we bought our house from, remodeled. I've heard from neighbors, the back part of our kitchen was an enclosed porch. You walked outside, and to the side was another door, that led to the basement. It's totally different now..thank God! Washing clothes when it's -4. lol. Some areas in the city probably have them. Toni

I already have next spring planned out!!

Cath knows what that one is....lolol

Mike

Mrtexas,
Your new varieties listed for this year and last were interesting. Have you tasted the Cocktail grapefruit yet? Did the Vainiglia Sanguigno taste revolting or was it just that it was difficult to get used to an orange that tasted like vanilla? Could there be other uses for it than traditional orange type uses?

Toni,
Regarding gardenias, I had not been able to grow them until I met a woman who inherited one from her mother. She said that they were easy to grow as long as they were watered with rain water or distilled water. Since then they have done reasonably well for me. They seem to be sensitive to our alkaline Midwest water and/or minerals accumulating in the soil. I write this because I saw a huge thread in Garden Web on how difficult it is to grow gardenias and didn't know if you could use the information.

Meyermike,
Not sure which varieties you are referring to. Knowing you, probably ALL of them.

Cath

Yes I have had Cocktail GF. Very nice sweet and not bitter white grapefruit taste. You have to taste an acidless orange yourself! It has no citrus taste at all.

Yesterday my Logee's order of citrus came, so yes, I guess you could say I got some new citrus this year!

{{gwi:624506}}

The plants on the left are the citrus -- some the 2" pots and some 4" or 5". There are a Palestine Sweet Lime, a Meyer Lemon, a Ponderosa, a Golden Nugget, a seedless Kishu, a Sweet Lemon, and an Otaheite Tahitian Orange.

I have a Persian Lime, Mike --- that's the same as a Bearss, right?

So then I read through this thread and the dread word "eBay" came up ------ I have bought a lot of plant material from eBay over the years, incl. just leaves to reproduce. So I went there and bought a small Calimondin orange and am watching a couple from Larry's Orchids, a grafted Cara Cara red navel orange and a grafted Red Star Grapefruit. They were $20 each plus shipping so I am cooling it for awhile. But I'd like to get a blood orange, too -- eventually.

Fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just do me a huge favor!!

Check those plant out throughly for pest's..Especially under the leaves..Each and everyone...Use a magnifying glass if you can..Please do so before you put those next to your others...Wash then, each and every leaf and spray if you can to prevent an invasion...

I am serious....

Ok.

Mike..:-)

I suspect, Mike, you are referring to any plants I get from eBay needing careful inspection............

You may well have a point there. [:-)

Not just e-bay, even from Logees and other nurseries where I get most of mine from..No nursery is bug proof, trust me on this.....:-((

Don't take any chances, please...

Triangle John,

I'm still experimenting with this marmalade. Thought you might be interested in one or two of the permutations, that is, before placing the hot marmalade in the jars I put in either 1/2 teaspoon of Curacao or 1/4 teaspoon of Fiori d Sicilia. The Curacao makes it taste "orangier". The Fiori d Scicilia, available from Baker's Catalog - online, gives an interesting orange-vanilla scent. May try more Curacao next year if I remember.

Cath

Oh, yes. Lots :-) When my hubby and I moved into this lovely home, we inherited several mystery citrus trees, all extremely neglected. Zero water, just whatever the previous owners could water by hand, or what the sprinkler would reach (which was essentially zero). Amazing they all survived. For sure I've got a Eureka Lemon and a Meyer Improved. The Meyer is the wunderkind tree - despite the neglect, it is covered with about 200 lemons right now, and it's a dwarf. Last winter I had Meyer lemons coming out my ears. I think this tree due to the neglect, is cycling, instead of having ready fruit all the time. I now have, again, about 200 lemons that are riping. The fruit on the lower branches are turning yellow, and all the fruit towards the top still has a ways to go. 3 other mystery citrus trees yet to be identified - probably lemon, possibly one Valencia orange - all due to no fruit, and I didn't get a good look at the flush to see if it was lemon-like (purplish). Few thorns, but the trees have been here for several years. I just put into the ground today these lovely additions, all semi-dwarf but with the promise from Clausen's that they won't get bigger than 8 feet (personally, in N. San Diego County, I find that hard to believe, but I'm taking him at his word):

Rio Red Grapefruit (crossing my fingers we get enough heat)
Melogold Grapefruit
Cocktail Grapefruit
Moro Blood Orange (ditto with the heat)
Pixie Tangerine
Algerian (Clemintine) Tangerine
Bearss Lime

I was chatting with a great gal out in Palm Desert on another gardening chat list, and she shared her photos of her Minneola Tangelo sport that is variegated!! I am hoping I can drive out there and get a branch to graft. I've not ever grafted citrus trees, so I'm hoping I can have some success with this. Have to get the right rootstock, so I'll give Clausen's a call and see what I can get so that I have something right for my soil, and won't get too big. The fruit are WAY cool looking!! Too bad I can't grow them from seed, which would be easier. I'll snap some pics of my little orchard up on the hill tomorrow. We're hoping for some nice rain tomorrow morning. I backfilled and topped all the wells with compost, did a very light fertilizing with some Vigiro Citrus, double dripped everything, and I'm going to set up a separate station for just my fruit trees so I can do a once a week deep watering for a bit. Then, once everyone looks happy, move to every 2 to 3 weeks deep watering. And, I'll spray with Spinosad/Volck Oil tomorrow evening after the rains, and hang my pheromone traps. And wrap the trunks to keep the rats, mice, rabbits, gophers and other nasty rodent-type varmints away from the trunks. Lastly, I'll bait for roof rats when the traps come in. I swear to goodness. I'm going to be the only one eating the fruit off these trees!

Patty S.

I totally caught the citrus fever this year.

Started with a fingerlime for novelty value...a week later got a pink lemonade and a week after that got tango mandarin! And i started off with no trees and now I have 3 citrus plus a peach!

I'm excited about all of them esp when my finger limes start showing growth! heres a bunch of photos of my new trees.

Here is a link that might be useful: Click here to see my Finger lime and other citrus :)

Hi Cath..:-)

Hoosierquilt...That sounds so good! The only thing you should really add to the list is an Oro Blanco grapefruit tree..Huge blossoms and the sweetest fruit I ever tasted, seedless!

Apartmentfarmer...Congrats!!! I can't wait to see you here more often and hear the stories you have to share about them..I saw the picture..Very nice..

Mike..:-)