There is no such thing as citrus and low care in the same sentence .
If you would like the challenge of growing citrus , go to the UF website - solutionsforyourlife.com and read , read , read .

Choose a citrus variety that is cold hardy . After this year , you can see why that is a wise choice . Key limes are very tropical and will not survive in zone 9 . All limes are very cold sensitive .

Kumquats , Calomondins and Grapefruit might be a better choice for tolerating cold . There are some oranges that will be OK too .

Lots of people completely ignore citrus trees and the trees still bear fruit . But , with regular maintenance the trees will thrive and look beautiful for you .

See if you can find some mature trees in your area to gauge the size of a full grown tree . Some orange or grapefruit trees can become huge . There are dwarf trees for smaller yards .

Keep us posted on what you decide .

Here is a link that might be useful: Citrus Guide

ktmeyer ~ If you are thinking keylime, then you should be considering a Lakeland lime which is a variety of limequat. Limequats are a cross between keylime and kumquat, taking on the taste of the keylime and the cold hardiness of the kumquat. I bought mine at the Daytona Flea Market.

Christine

I have a dooryard citrus orchard of a dozen trees. I have one each of the following varieties: a Satsuma and Murcott mandarin, a Robinson and Dancy tangerine, a Minneola tangelo, a Persian and Key Lime, a Meyer and Eureka Lemon, a Navel, Valencia and mystery orange (*bought* as a Navel, but when it fruited, t'was not a Navel -- likely a Hamlin).

I can't say that any of them are harder or easier to grow. Frost hardiness is a factor as mentioned, my Key lime was *not* happy with the low temps this year, but survived with little more than nipped leaves. It was new to my orchard this year, though, and I was able to cover it completely. The others lost some brand new growth and buds, but sustained no damage to older leaves.

None of them were hard to grow (to my mind), but then I enjoy pruning and training them so much that I just bought a bunch of apples, which require considerably more of both *and* at the minimum yearly sprayings of dormancy oil (where citrus does not generally require any spraying at all).

Having lost a couple of citrus from my early attempts, I can tell you that proper care when planting is ***very*** important. I lost three plants due to foot rot because the soil did not drain well enough. Citrus trees detest wet feet. After those failures, I started digging a much larger hole than in my early attempts (the standard 'twice as large as the rootball'). On my later trees I took the time to dig a hole about 3 foot in diameter and two feet deep, and tilled in a bag of potting soil and a bag of sand in when backfilling. The addition of the potting soil and sand allowed me to make a small mound (just a couple inches above ground level). The trees I planted in sites prepared in this fashion not only survived but grew remarkably faster than my first attempts. A big blue bag of Jungle Growth (Lowe's store brand) soil and a bag of sand together cost about a quarter what you'll spend on a citrus in a three-gallon pot and in my experience will cut a year or more off the time it'll take to get a sizeable crop of fruit.