I have two citrus trees in containers, one tangerine and one lime. Let me preface that I have no experience in growing these other than the last 6 months when I got them and put them in their container. Your climate is probably pretty close to mine. I have put my citrus in my workshop when it is really cold (below 35 degrees) and left the fluorescent lights on 24 hours. I have 4 tangerines on the tree and it is about to bloom again and too many to count limes. Having said that them may not stay on the tree until harvest. Only time will tell. If I were getting lights, I would get the highest watt LED flood lights with as high as possible light temp, 6500K if you can find it. I think I saw 135 watt equivalent at Lowe's. They are not cheap, $35. Put it as close a possible to the plant with a reflector as mentioned above. Heat should not be a problem with LED. If you don't want the LED then put as many CFL around it as possible. I'd leave the lights on 24 hours. I put my plants outside when possible (above 35 degrees). Today is suppose to be 57 degrees but 2 weeks ago it was 2 degrees. Again, I don't really know what I'm doing but so far it is working. Probably beginners luck. Van (those are avocados in the other containers and they are blooming as well).

When you look at what goes into a good quality electronic fluorescent ballast for T8 lamps, and what it costs, you can understand why a $2 integrated bulb and ballast has reliability problems. The design of these cheap CFs is cut to the bare minimum to make the light work without catching fire. The components used are the cheapest possible. The labor is from people working in the most abysmal conditions for pay that most of us would consider starvation wages. It's no surprise that these folks might not be as careful as they should when assembling the CFs. Fifteen years ago, the CFs I was buying were made in the US, Germany, Mexico, and Poland. They cost $15-20 each. Ten years ago, similar CFs were around $10-15 each. When you look at the electricity they saved, and the hours of service they gave, these costs were reasonable. In fact, many of those units lasted for years. I just recently replaced one of the Philips Earth Lights that I bought in 1994, and a Philips Marathon tri-tube from 1999. Other than a couple of Lights of America products, I never had a CF fail in under a year until I bought a few cheap Chinese-made CFs for one of my rental properties in 2005. (One of them died within minutes of first use.) I'm glad I stocked up on these older CFs when they were still available. I probably have a lifetime supply. For years I recommended the Mexican-made tri-tube Philips Marathon CFs (mentioned above). These cost around $10 as recently as 2006, and IMO were worth it for their reliability. There was a dimmable version which worked passably well (I have a few here). Now they're nearly impossible to find. I'm afraid they're out of production. Though I probably won't ever need to buy any more CFs, I would like to hear from others who have had good experiences with newer CFs. Please be specific about brands and models.

Been trying to tell people this for a long time mote, but seems curious that people go Chicken Little on one thing and ignore a far more serious danger. And amazingly, people will recycle pop bottles and tuna cans, but won't recycle light bulbs. I truly wish I could understand this fear of change. Personally I think the life span of the CFL bulb useage as a whole will be short in the grand scheme of things, all things considered, as I believe the LEDs will be soon taking over with even better savings. However, people will still put crosses in their windows and sprinkle salt at their doors at that time too I imagine. Somewhere in the future there's going to be a lot of peoples' estates given the chore of disposing of all these hoarded light bulbs too I suspect! I will say that there are some differences in color temperature on bulbs and certain bulbs won't seem as bright as others. I find this true with streetlights when you compare sodium vapors with mercury vapors. (Oh heavens!!! MERCURY!!! Our towns are now hazardous waste sites as are many warehouses, even stores. What will we do?) The lamp next to my recliner had a 100w bulb and 2-60w bulbs. I'd use a 60 for general lighting and if company were here, all three would be on, and for reading the newspaper or something the idea was the 100w. It got to the point with incandescent, I needed the 100w with a 60 for comfortable reading. I switched to a 23w and two 13w CFLs. For reading now I only use the 23w (100w comparable) so in reality, during those times, I'm using 23 watts instead of 160. And there were times I'd burn the 3rd bulb so even to offset the occasional use of two at once, it's still clear about the savings. I can't understand how anyone would think a $5/mo variance in a $30 bill with rates and general useage would not be noticible! So it's no sense trying to discuss it. Question for you hersraterdave: If you had the same failure rate on a single particular brand of incandescent bulb, let's say a batch of Binford brand had similar failure, would you quit incandescents and start using candles? Or might you consider another brand or source? Or some other cause of the trouble? I'm just curious. :) Seriously though, although I'm not pleased with the dimming on the dimmable bulbs I put in the kitchen, I am pleased that I'm using 75watts instead of 225 watts and getting more light in the process. That's the result I wanted anyway. But to be fair, I wasn't pleased with the flickering of incandescent in the same fixture on the dimmers either. Given the energy use, I don't feel bad about leaving it on for a while since it's still cheaper than the incandescent. It remains to be seen how long these will last, but (knock China-made wood) so far, so good.

Now that I understand there are choices in fluorescent light quality and color, I don't feel as disappointed. There's two components you should be aware of. The first is the Color Temperature (that shouldn't be confused with actual temperature or heat the lamp may give off). It's expressed in degrees Kelvin and you'll see something like 2700K or 6500K printed on the lamp or packaging (with the higher numbers being towards the blue end of the spectrum and lower numbers towards the red). Manufacturers also use terms like "Warm" or "Daylight" to describe the color but those terms are subjective and what is warm to one manufacturer may be slightly different than another manufacturer's warm and even different within the same manufacturer's line. Which, depending on how fussy you are, can be a little annoying when you use multiple lamps in the same fixture. The other component is Color Rendering Index (CRI) or how accurately the lamp reproduces color. This is very important to stores where, say, a blue shirt needs to appear to be the same blue in the store and at the customer's home. CRI is measured on a 100 scale and higher is better. The only way to improve the CRI is for the manufacturer to use better (read more expensive) phosphors when making the lamp. While very few manufacturers give that information on the packaging, generally speaking more expensive lamps reproduce color better. Most fluorescent lamps have a CRI in the low to mid 80's which is fine for most purposes. If you are sensitive to color or want better color rendering in, say, a dressing area then look for lamps with a 90+ CRI. Unfortunately, with the eventual phase out of incandescent lamps, picking a light bulb just became a little more complicated.