You should check out Gardenweb's citrus forum for your general questions -- there are some really experienced folks there. Along with bananas, I grow a few citrus -- a Meyer lemon, Persion lime, and a minneola tangelo. I've never seen leaf formations like you describe. My plants are in an unheated sunroom in the colder months, and outdoors on the deck in the summer. Spider mites can be a real problem. I spray my trees with water regularly -- the best thing I've found to control mites.

I had a tangerine plant for about the same amount of time, got a couple of crops of golf-ball sized fruit, kind of novel, it always bloomed profusely, wonderful indoors.

Calamondin in a container is easy to care for and hardier, but the fruit is for flavoring other drinks, it does not make enough juice for other purposes.

The price of citrus plants is getting quite high and you would have to have a greenhouse or sun room and lots of fertilizer to get more than the occasional fruit. The plants at nurseries with big fruit on them are very tempting.

I lived in commercial citrus producing territory for decades and never heard of counting nodes. Citrus are heavy feeders and your tree may not be getting enough nitrogen. They also require excellent drainage and like to go dry between waterings.

If it is living in the house it may not be getting enough light, unless it's in a sun room or something similar. Ordinary house conditions do not allow enough light in for plants that are normally grown outdoors in full sun. Our eyes adjust to the darkness so we don't notice it that much but consider that most of the successful houseplants we grow come from tropical rainforest floors where there's very little light.

I got rid of all my citrus collection when I lost my sunroom. I have a relatively bright, well-lit house but it's not enough to make citrus happy.

My tangerine plants always took on a bi-color look in the spring when returned outside because of dark green outdoors summer growth and pale green indoors winter growth, despite being shoved next to the brightest window.

Just saw an ad on Craig's list for a woman selling Meyer Lemon trees.

>Because they have been grown in the area, they are much hardier than stock that is brought in from southern locales.Not inherently. Plants coming in from lower latitudes can be in a less hardy temporary condition due to their growth being more advanced that season, but growing plants in a colder climate for awhile does not change their hardiness rating. The temperature at which a plant freezes when fully hardened off is always the same, you cannot make a plant more hardy than it is already capable of when you get it.

BBoy, I can't contradict what you say, since I'm not sufficiently versed in plant propagation to know. However, I have heard some nursery growers say that succeding generations build up a tolerance to local conditions that the original parents didn't have. But then, maybe its due to the effect of gobal warming, also an idea that's up for debate!

I was so happy to find this thread because I want to grow a citrus or two - south facing deck in summer and sunroom in winter (I'm laughing when I say 'sunroom'!). All the fog and then dark cloudy days we had pretty well eliminated ANY sun at my house here in Tacoma for about three months this winter.

I'm looking for citrus to buy - probably a Meyer lemon and a Ranjpur lime. Any suggestions for local supplier or a reliable net source?

Succeeding generations would be seedlings, not clonal propagations of the same stock. Where a sexual process is involved the implication is that there is potential for natural selection to take place--when the plants are grown outdoors. Tropical citrus are still going to have to be protected from hard frost, so it seems the only climate-related characteristic that might perhaps get weeded out somewhat by years of growing multiple generations under local conditions is an intolerance of cool summer conditions. This is assuming that a number of superior seedlings do in fact present themselves during the process, are recognized as such, and are used to form the basis for a new line.

Named citrus cultivars normally purchased at nurseries are vegetative propagations. Shipping these in, growing them here for any length of time or even grafting new stock from them here will have no effect on their genetically predetermined environmental tolerance ranges.

This is the third year for my Meyer Lemon, It's been a challenging plant to grow, but rewarding.

In the first year I battled a scale infection, leaf yellowing and leaf drop.

2nd year I remedied these problems with the knowledge of people on the citrus forum. Guess what, I got ONE nice fruit last year, I was soooo proud of that fruit I made a glass of lemonade out of it! It was fun.

3rd year, this year, the tree has never been healthier! Blooming like crazy! Perhaps this will be a bumper crop.

Most important things!

1) Scale will suck the life out of your tree, look for signs of a sappy nasty substance and black shell like parasites on the branches. Kill them with cotton swab dabbed with alchol. Treat with oil that kills scale. Keep and eye for any new nasties and treat.
2) Don't over water! Let the tree dry out between waterings.
3) Perodically, super flush the soil/pot of the salt build up with plain old water. Make sure your pot has many holes for good drainage.
4) Fertilize regulary during growing season, make sure your fertilizer is a citrus blend with MICRO-Nutrients. The Micro's are very important! I use an organic, dry blend blend so I don't burn my baby.

Hey, Hostaguy,
thanks for the tips; I have a couple meyers lemons, and a couple buddha's hand citrons. Any specific recommends on the cirtus blend fert? ccckoball

I use Whitney Farms: Citrus, Avocado & Vine Food (7-4-2)

A high nitrogen formula for the unique growing requirements of citrus, avocados, berries, and grapes.
An effective, all natural blend developed both for in-ground plantings and for plants in containers.
Contains blood meal and dried poultry waste for fast-acting response.
Fertilize crops twice a year  once at planting time or in early spring and again in late May.
Ingredients: Bone Meal, Blood Meal, Alfalfa Meal, Feather Meal, Sulfate of Potash, Dried Poultry Waste, and Kelp Meal.
Available in 4 lb. boxes and 15 lb. bags.
back to top

Kelp Meal is the best source of Micronutrients you can find, this particular Citrus blend has it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Whitney Farms

I have 3 citrus, Keiffer Lime, Pink Lemonade, and Meyer Orange. All are in our greenhouse as we speak!! I will bring them out as soon as I am very sure it will not frost. I grow them for their leaves, not for their fruit, especially in pots. I am from So. Cal and miss the fragrance of the citrus. They are in large pots and will stay in them for their lifetime....

Oh, the smell, I love that smell......I grew up in Phoenix.

Someday I'm having a greenhouse.....

I've had great success in Seattle with lemons, limes, oranges and clementines. I leave them out in the summer and bring them in to face a south window before first frost and return outdoors in spring after last frost.

Granted by spring they look a bit ratty and have spider mites no doubt. But I just blast them with a hose, fertilize and water and in about a month or so they're lush and healthy with new growth and blossoms.

I once had a lemon I got from one of those bad reputation nurseries as a tiny 2-3" plant. It did great and was covered with blooms and small fruit when I guess I didn't water it well enough and it suddenly died.:-( I now have a Kumquat that has only bloomed one winter and had a few fruits. I apparently don't treat it well enough but at least it's still alive. It's also brought into the house in front of a south-facing window and has had spider mites and scale.

I had a Citrus trifoliata outdoors for a few years but finally decided it would never bloom so finally got tired of the extreme thorns and killed it trying to move it. There are other citrus that may survive in microclimates. I had it on a south-facing concrete wall.

More Citrus thoughts to good health in the PNW:

Put your citrus outside well after the last frost and the temps are reaching 65-70 degrees upward daily (anything lower than 65 is not optitum fruiting production.
Superflush with water out the soil to remove pot salt build up, I do this once a year (before first fertilization)
Fertilize early Spring and Mid summer 2 times.
Remember to check for needed water, you'll need more now that it's growing season and temps are warming up. Sometimes I protect the soil surface with plastic if I know it's going to be a temporary monsoon, I don't want my plant to be sitting in cold, damp water.

Watch for bugs and treat accordingly.
I put corse sand/grit on the soil surface to prevent bugs from making home in the top layer of soil.

Eat fruit.

Get tree back in the greenhouse or the bright sunny window well before the first frost or serious cold nights. This will keep stress down.

Repeat process and repot as needed! Enjoy!

We grow several types of citrus. You have already been given some good advice here. The biggest problem for us has been scale infestation which is remedied by natural insecticide you can make at home. The recipe is readily found in Google. Best of luck.

Salve vorrei sapere se è possibile comprare arance e limoni di sicilia a seattle

grazie però chiedevo se a seattle si trovano le arance rosse di sicilia, forse ho sbagliato conversazione!

Non la conversazione sbagliata. Probabilmente molto poche persone qui parlano italiano!

http://www.ActivePassFreight.com

One of my favorite teachers grew citrus in our classroom but he showed us how to pollinate the trees since no bees could. This was 25+ years ago but the science and logic are the same? =) We used pipe cleaners to transfer pollen from one part to another. It was pretty fun

Two citrus trees:

Clementine x Yuzu hybrid (so-called "Ten Degree Tangerine")

Satsuma x Changsha hybrid mandarin

planted it out in March, when it was full of foliage and beginning to fruit, but the temperatures were too prolonged cool/cold that early in the year and it died back and all the leaves fell off, except for one lone leaf coming out of the bottom. It has now begun to push out a little bit of growth from the bottom, although most of the branches are dead. probably wasn't a good idea to move it outside right as it was fruiting, or should have waited another month or two.

Olympia, WA

consider that that's actually just a tiny bit further north in latitude than Duluth, Minnesota, or even Quebec City, Canada.

As you can see in the pictures, these are both in the ground (havn't actually gone through the Winter yet, but I have a Satsuma in a plastic sheet enclosure and a very small Yuzu that did make it through the Winter, altgough it was a very mild Winter in the PNW this year.

The PNW climate is pretty different from Southeast, where many other people are experimenting with cold-hardy citrus. There are extreme long stretches of cold/cool temperatures throughout half the year, but the tiny amount of freeze we do get rarely gets very cold. The cool marine influence leads to a very stable climate, no storms to bring in freezing cold air. Of course it's a pretty short growing season for citrus. I'd say the temperatures don't really begin warming up to what citrus needs untl mid-May or June (although it stays warm till around September, not that cold in October either).

I've read some reports around here that people have managed to keep Meyer Lemons alive outside in the ground in a warm spot, typically south side against the wall of a house with lots of sun and wind protection, although they suffer a lot of damage in the winter. The two (rare) varieties shown in those pictures have more cold hardiness than Meyer Lemon.

Two citrus trees:

Clementine x Yuzu hybrid (so-called "Ten Degree Tangerine")

Satsuma x Changsha hybrid mandarin

planted it out in March, when it was full of foliage and beginning to fruit, but the temperatures were too prolonged cool/cold that early in the year and it died back and all the leaves fell off, except for one lone leaf coming out of the bottom. It has now begun to push out a little bit of growth from the bottom, although most of the branches are dead. probably wasn't a good idea to move it outside right as it was fruiting, or should have waited another month or two.

Olympia, WA

thanks for the update

Satsuma

Yuzu

Both of these survived over the winter, although the winter on the West Coast was extremely mild this year. The Satsuma was covered with a frame and plastic sheeting until the middle of March. The water containers were in there to help moderate the temperature.

The Satsuma just put out two little blossoms:

Despite it being pretty cool outside, there could be some hot temperatures inside the enclosure when the sun was out and the skies were clear, due to the greenhouse effect. The water was there to help absorb that heat and then dissipate it during the cold nights.

I would have wanted to keep it covered longer, but like I said, by the middle of March the temperatures just got too hot inside sometimes, even though it was much cooler than optimal the majority of the time. I think the covering helped prepare it to more quickly come out of dormancy though, which it did in late May to the beginning of June.

Satsuma is a little hardier than other common citrus varieties, but still not as cold hardy as some other rare varieties I have, so it needed a cover. Maybe in another two years we can try without a cover, when it's a little bigger.

The Yuzu only had a simple plastic sheet over it, but that's only this year because it was so small.

Important to keep them consistently watered when temperatures do finally start warming up.

Yuzu

so yes it did survive the Winter with a simple plastic sheet over it. pretty small plant, so next year I expect it to be able to survive without cover

(zone 8a)

Here's a picture of the Yuzu after being completely buried by snow:

After it had been mostly buried by snow, I did put a paper bag over it with a water container right next to it on the coldest night. The bag quickly blew off the next day, however.

(Water helps keep the temperature from going much below freezing)

The Yuzu is about 4 feet away from the South facing side of the house, so that probably helps.

Ten Degree Tangerine

an update:

The Yuzu-Clementine hybrid, the Satsuma-Changsha hybrid, and the Satsuma are by now all dead.

(It might be possible these three might be able to survive here, but they could have died for me due to special factors, too complicated to explain in detail here)

The Yuzu is still alive and doing good, and there are various other rare special hardy citrus varieties that are still surviving out in the ground.

Also have a Sudachi, wasn't protected, that has survived through two winters. It doesn't look like it's growing the most vigorously, but I guess it looks okay, and has just a few blooms now.

June 2021

I have many other special varieties which have survived, but I feel it's still too premature to say how they will do long-term.

(It gets too complicated to describe the exact conditions they experienced and how they responded)