I'm real fond of using a key lime in my sweet tea. It would be neat to have a cold hardy variant (I live in Tennessee) for this purpose. I found a Poncirus trifoliata naturalized in the woods with hundreds of seedlings all around it. Because of this I was wondering if anyone has attempted a cross between key lime and poncirus? I have some key lime seedlings coming up right now. About half are double zygotic the other half are single/clone. Will there be any difference between the two? Anyone have success growing key limes from seed and had them produce? How long between germination and flowering? As far as separation, I would wait at least nine weeks (I'm sure I will wait longer). I have a 15yr old citrus grown from seed- but it has never flowered (but it does get stressed every year...) I grew it in WELL composted bat guano (and I don't fertilize it- it's an overgrown citrus bonzai)

Thank you very much rhizo 1 and citrange. I am going away to read up about these pests! I prefer not to use chemicals, so I'm going to have to find an organic solution. In fact the key limes are in pots, and are pretty small -- so far I have been able to pick off the cottony stuff, but it would be nice to get rid of it before it jumps to my other citruses. I had another look at my tangerine. In fact there are two new strong shoots coming from near the bottom. It's in its second year and I'm going to prune it to above the 4th node anyway to make it branch, and I think I'll cut out both shoots. It was really helpful to know what these shoots are called, as I didn't know what to put in the search box! Thanks a lot. Ashita

Hi - no expert here but I've saved some seeds from my mom's Key Limes, & since citrus seeds seem to pop up easily in my yard, I plugged some into seed-starting mix in celpacks and left them outside to see what develops. FWIW, the rule of thumb for planting depth is approx. 4X the seed, so citrus gets planted approx. an inch deep, by my calculations. Also FWIW, I try to mimic nature & since the fruits are now done ripening on her tree, I figure that a fallen fruit would be 'planted' naturally around this time of year... HTH

Dandt, that tree looks nice and huge fore only being a 2 year old seedling, please let us know when it decides to flower. I love to know from real people who grow seedling's how long they actually take, though with yours being inside/without optimal conditions it may delay it. Not to hijack the thread but Dave, how do you like your rock patio? we are thinking of doing something similar in our yard.